


Bury This in Fire

by groveofbones



Series: A Skeleton of Fractured Parts [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Force-Sensitive Finn, Force-Sensitive Hux, Knights of Ren - Freeform, Multi, Murder BFF Assassination Roadtrip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-03-27 01:00:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 88,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13869726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groveofbones/pseuds/groveofbones
Summary: A shaky alliance between two disgruntled First Order officers and the remnants of the Resistance, to assassinate one of the most powerful Force-users in the galaxy. Poe's right, this is a terrible idea.





	1. Prologue: Best-Laid Plans

_This is a terrible idea_ , Poe though for the hundredth time. 

 

He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot on the landing pad, a relic of an old Imperial base on a backwater planet that didn’t get much traffic anymore. On his right, Rose turned to give him a sharp look, and he stopped fidgeting. On her right, Finn stood perfectly straight, fists clenched at his sides, staring at the approaching ship with a hard look on his face that Poe was not used to seeing. At Finn’s other side, at the end of the line, Rey stood with her arms crossed, looking at the ship as if she was about to fight it. Or bring it down with the Force.

 

To Poe’s left, Leia stood still and seemingly completely unbothered, face set in a bland half-smile. She looked like she didn’t have a care in the world. Poe wished he knew how she did it. He almost started fidgeting again, but didn’t want to draw Rose’s attention. She was watching Finn worriedly out of the corner of her eye.

 

The ship was small and sleek, angular and black. It looked every inch a First Order ship, and Poe hated it. He especially hated that he really wanted to know what it felt like to fly it. It swooped in toward the landing pad like a predatory bird, looking completely out of place as it touched down on the unused, cracked, overgrown tarmac. 

 

The occupants of the ship wasted no time opening the doors and striding down the ramp to the pavement like they owned the place. General Hux was even scrawnier and paler in the flesh than he was in holos, his only color seeming to be his hair and the dark circles under his eyes. Poe briefly entertained himself with the thought of tapping the man on the forehead and watching him topple over backwards like a skinny tree. He barely managed to keep from smirking.

 

The General’s companion was more intimidating, tall and broad-shouldered and armored in a shiny silver version of the getup he’d first seen Finn in. Poe shot a glance sideways at Finn. His jaw was clenched like he was grinding his teeth, eyes fixed on Captain Phasma.

 

This was a terrible idea.

 

“General Hux,” Leia said in what Poe thought of as her “Senate Pleasantries” voice, stepping forward and holding out her hand. Hux just stared at the hand for a long moment, face grimly blank, before reaching out and shaking it. The delay made Poe clench his fists.

 

“General Organa,” Hux said back. His voice sounded just like it had when Poe had distracted him before the bomb attack: cold and arrogant and utterly hateable. Poe really wanted to punch this guy. Or shoot him. Or drop him out an airlock…

 

“I trust you found our intelligence reliable?” Hux went on.

 

“Of course we did,” Leia answered, “or we wouldn’t be here, would we?”

 

“Then I suppose we should begin the negotiations,” Hux said. “Just so you know, I’ve left a satellite cannon in orbit, keyed to blast this location off the map if my vital signs should cease. I assume you’ve taken similar precautions?”

 

Poe could think of a couple of ways to kill Hux and still make it off the planet alive, but that wasn’t the plan. And this time, he was going to stick to the plan. Leia nodded and gestured toward the entrance to the little monitoring station overlooking the landing pad. General Hux followed her without looking behind him, as if he had no fear of being attacked. Or as if he trusted Captain Phasma to act as his bodyguard. Poe made sure to step between her and General Hux, so that there weren’t two First Order officers between him and Leia. He didn’t look back at her, even though her presence behind him made his skin crawl.

 

Inside the station, there was a small round table around which five chairs, the only ones they could find, had been arranged. Poe took up a place standing behind Leia, staring Hux down. Phasma took up a similar position behind Hux’s chair, standing at attention and giving nothing away behind her helmet. Finn, Rey, and Rose took the remaining chairs, Rey being careful to sit between Finn and the First Order officers.

 

“So, let’s get to it,” Leia said decisively. “What exactly is it you want from us? You have to know that the Resistance is not nearly as strong as it was before Crait.” The basic outlines of the alliance had already been developed in encrypted messages between the two Generals, so both sides knew what the other wanted, but Poe understood that it was good to get these things out in the open, face to face. He swallowed his impatience.

 

“And you have to know,” Hux responded, “that we don’t exactly have access to the full resources of the First Order. We are acting on our own initiative and counter to the interests of the new Supreme Leader.” He said the last words with audible disgust. “So what we want from you is to do us all a favor and remove that particular piece from the board. Neither of us has the ability to do it alone. We provide the intelligence, you provide the materiel. We lead him into a trap, you kill him.”

 

Rey glared at Hux, baring her teeth slightly. Hux ignored her. Leia did not glare, or change her expression at all, but Poe still felt outraged on her behalf. Ren was still her son, after all; Hux didn’t have to be so cavalier about this.

 

“So, essentially, you want us to do your dirty work?” Leia asked. “And what will we get in return?”

 

“The intelligence already given as a gesture of good faith has allowed you to head off several strategic initiatives that were years in the making and required extensive planning, much of it by me. In the wake of Ren’s death, time and effort will be necessary to consolidate power and prevent chaos. My plan involves the redeployment of troops from two systems on the outskirts of our territory to the interior to assist in this transitional period. So, to answer your question, General, what you get it breathing space. A chance to regroup, to reestablish control in some areas you had lost, and to bolster your forces.”

 

“If this alliance would help the Resistance so much,” Leia asked, “wouldn’t you be worse off than you are now? Why do this at all? Why not just swallow your ambition and follow Ren?”

 

Hux scowled. “This isn’t a matter of ambition.” Poe almost laughed out loud at that. “This is about the long-term good of the First Order. Make no mistake, Ren will destroy you, but he’ll destroy us in the process. He’s an erratic, superstitious madman. I don’t know what bloody cave Snoke dragged him out of, but he is completely unfit to lead.”

 

_Oh, shit_ , Poe thought. _He doesn’t know_. Snoke must have kept secret who Ren really was. 

 

Leia regarded Hux for a long moment. Poe couldn’t even imagine what was going through her mind. Finally, she sighed and said, “Let’s hear your plan.”

 

The plan, as Hux described it, relied on using Rey, who Hux insisted on calling “the girl,” as bait. “It’s the only way we’ll be able to isolate Ren from the rest of the First Order. If he thinks he has a chance to capture or kill or recruit the girl, or whatever it is he wants to do to her, he won’t bring anyone with him. He’ll want to do it alone, like an idiot.”

 

Poe had to admit that that was true. Ren was obsessed with Rey; Rey had told them that she’d felt him several times, pushing to reestablish the connection she’d broken on Crait. She’d kept him out, so it made sense that Ren would jump at the chance to confront her in person.

 

“And how are you going to bait this trap with me?” Rey asked, voice hard. 

 

“Ah,” General Hux said, sitting up straighter and smiling slightly, as if he was pleased with the question. “I’m going to reach into my coat pocket for a holo, this joint project would benefit from no one shooting me when I do.”

 

Even with the warning, Poe tensed, but Hux hadn’t been lying. He laid the tiny holo projection device on the table and switched it on. A starmap appeared, showing what Poe recognized as the Outer Rim systems. With a flick of his fingers, Hux zoomed the map in on a specific planet, labelled “Mustafar.”

 

“This system was evacuated by the Republic three years ago, and Resistance operations on its planets ceased two years ago, but it was judged not of sufficient strategic importance to justify diversion of limited resources to its retainment. It’s nominally under First Order control, but operationally is a bit of a no-man’s land. However, it contains this planet, which used to house the stronghold of the Empire-affiliated Force-user known as Darth Vader.”

 

Leia raised a single eyebrow. “I hadn’t been aware of that.”

 

“It wasn’t common knowledge; I found this information in archives that the First Order took from the wreckage of the Empire. As it happens, Ren is particularly obsessed with this Force-user, and has made frequent pointlessly sentimental trips to collect relics of the man. He’s gone to Mustafar several times.”

 

General Hux flicked his fingers again, and the map zoomed back out. This time, there was a green dot placed over where Mustafar would be, and a red dot on a practically the opposite edge of First Order space.

 

“Ren, in his seemingly infinite desire to avoid his responsibilities, has allowed me to retain control over the First Order’s intelligence apparatus. I’ve seeded false reports of Resistance activity around the Lek system,” he pointed to the red dot, “and convinced Ren that the reports were worrisome enough to warrant deployment of myself and Captain Phasma to investigate the situation. If you agree to this plan, I will seed another false report indicating the girl’s presence in the Mustafar system.”

 

“And Ren will assume that she has some knowledge or hopes to gain something from Vader’s stronghold,” Leia finished. “He’ll hope he can gain control of both Rey and whatever she was looking for.”

 

Hux nodded. “Ren treats the Force as if it’s the most important thing in the galaxy, and makes the mistake of assuming that everyone else does, as well. He’ll likely decide that the Resistance movements in the Lek system were distractions, or at the very least he’ll treat them as unimportant. He’ll come to Mustafar alone, and will be ambushed there.”

 

“There’s one thing you’ve conveniently left out,” Rey said. “Where are the other Knights of Ren? That strikes me as somewhat important.”

 

Hux frowned and glanced back at Captain Phasma for a moment, then turned back around. When he answered, he spoke to Leia, rather than to Rey. 

 

“Unfortunately, the whereabouts and activities of the Knights of Ren represent a gap in our intelligence.”

 

“That seems like a pretty bit gap,” Leia said.

 

“It is… less than ideal,” Hux allowed, “but I have judged the plan to be worth the risk. The Knights of Ren are not included in any official records of the First Order. I operated as Ren’s co-commander for five years and never seen him in contact with them. And if you,” he inclined his head toward Rey, “also saw no sign of them, it is my best guess that he will not include them in his plans should he believe you are on Mustafar.”

 

“Luckily for you it’s only our lives you’re gambling with, though, right?” Poe asked, unable to stop himself. 

 

“Not at all,” Hux said, arching one eyebrow at Poe. “This seems as good a time as any to bring up the fact that our participation in this plan is conditional on our accompanying you to see it through.”

 

Poe, Rey, Rose, and Finn all managed to shout out some variation of “hell no” before Leia silenced them all with a raised hand and a look. Leia herself didn’t show any surprise at the revelation. 

 

“Why would we agree to that?” Leia asked. 

 

Hux shrugged. “What is your alternative plan for dealing with the Supreme Leader? If you want to trap him at his most vulnerable, you’ll need my access to the intelligence systems.”

 

“There are five Resistance members in this room,” Leia said, conceding the point. “If we agree to this plan, we’ll rendezvous with a sixth. You’ll be outnumbered. Your demand doesn’t make any sense.”

 

“Nonetheless, General, it is our demand. I’ve invested a great deal of time and energy into this plan, and I won’t leave it in someone else’s hands. Also, you should know that the satellite cannon isn’t the only thing keyed to our vital signs. If we die, a data package detailing the negotiations for this alliance will be sent directly to Ren. You’ll find it much harder to lure him out once he’s on his guard.”

 

The two Generals stared each other down, and Poe tried to reassure himself. He didn’t like this plan, didn’t like this alliance, and had a really bad feeling about how this was going to shake out. But following his first impulses had led to disaster the last time, and this time he was going to listen to his commanding officer and follow her lead. Leia was the smartest person he’d ever met; she’d figure this all out.

 

Finally, Leia sighed. “Fine. For better or worse, General Hux, we’re in this together now.”

 

***

 

Rey leaned against a window in the old troop transport that Leia had requisitioned for this mission, watching the planet in the distance and trying to collect her thoughts. The transport was blocky and ugly, and she and Poe were in firm agreement that it handled like it was drunk, but it had enough room in the hold for both the Falcon and the First Order ship. Any minute now, that very ship would come into view and dock with them, and she’d have to figure out how she really felt about this mission. 

 

She heard the sound of boots around the corner and had guessed by the walk that it was Poe before he came around the corner. “Hey,” he said fondly, standing next to her so he could lean against her window and look at the same view. 

 

“Hey,” she said back. “Did you find Finn?”

 

“Yeah, he didn’t want to talk. He said he’d want to at some point, just not right then. I figured that’s how it would be, but I wanted to tell him… well, that we were here.”

 

“That’s good,” Rey said, and they stood and watched the stars together for another minute.

 

“Damnit,” Poe said suddenly, “I really want to fly their stupid ship.”

 

Rey snorted and leaned against his shoulder, taking his hand and lacing her fingers through his. This thing between the four of them was still so new, growing out of the months after Crait that they spent regrouping and recovering together, so she still felt a little hesitant and uncertain. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the idea that they were all right _there_ , that hugs and kisses and hand-holding were things that she could just have if she wanted them. 

 

He tilted his head against hers and said, “How are you holding up?”

 

“I…” she hesitated. “I don’t know. I’m alright, I guess. I’m ready to _do_ something, move forward. I wish… Poe, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, I would understand, but do you think you could tell me… what Ben was like? Before?”

 

She pulled away a little bit, so she could see his face. He shrugged and sighed, smiling a little even though his brow was furrowed. “He was… He was younger, you know, so he always followed me around, always wanted to hang out. I thought I was so much older and cooler, so I didn’t always let him come along. But we had fun together, too. There were these gardens around the Senate, and they were huge, they were like a whole world to us. We made up the most ridiculous games when our parents were busy in Senate meetings. He could talk for hours, he’d get excited about the littlest things. He had all these ideas about what he’d do when he grew up, they seemed to change every hour sometimes.”

 

“Did he talk about being a Jedi?” Rey asked.

 

“Sometimes. Usually when someone had been talking about his uncle being a hero. Not a lot, though. I’m not really sure how he actually felt about it.” Poe looked out the window. “He went to stay with Luke when he was eleven. I saw him less after that. But he… even before that, he would get these dark moods, sometimes. Sometimes I even thought he was purposefully trying to piss me off, like he wanted people to be angry at him. There were times I honestly thought he hated me. He’d go a week at a time like that, and then he’d come find me and tell me that he was sorry and I was his best friend and could we hang out again. I don’t know, Rey. I never imagined…”

 

“I’m sorry. I’m didn’t mean to bring up old wounds,” she said, squeezing his hand.

 

“It’s just that… You know, when I was on that First Order ship, when I was a prisoner with him and he was… I kept not being able to believe it. Some part of me kept thinking there’s no way this could be Ben, there was no way that _Ben_ of all people would be doing this to me. It was only when I was back with the Resistance and I had a chance to rest and really think that I could, that I finally just had to stop and think, yeah, that was Ben hurting me. He’d really done that.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Rey said, catching his eyes. 

 

Poe put his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “Rey,” he said quietly, “I know you want to save him. I know you’re hoping that if you can talk to him again, you’ll convince him this time. But you might not be able to.”

 

“I know. I know that, Poe, really. When we fought together, I thought we understood one another, but I think I don’t actually know what he wants, what he’s willing to do. I won’t put the Resistance or any of you at risk for him.”

 

“Or you,” Poe said. “You’re more important than him, too, you know.” 

 

She leaned into him and let him pull her into a hug. He smelled like engine oil, and it reminded her of what she had been doing before she’d gotten lost in her thoughts. She pulled back and gave him a slightly watery smile. “Thanks, Poe. I should go, I was going to head to Rose’s workshop.”

 

“I’m going to go check the hangar, make sure the refuelling pumps are working,” Poe responded. Rey happened to know he’d checked the hangar three times over the past couple of days, but she didn’t say anything about it. She could sympathize; they were all nervous about this plan. “Tell Rose hi for me, okay?”

 

Rose had set up her workshop in a corner of the canteen, which happened to be the best-ventilated room on the ship. She had a flat metal mask in front of her face and thick gloves on as she set her welding torch against something on her worktable. Rey knocked a fist against the doorframe to get her attention. 

 

Rose flicked off the torch, lifted the mask off her face, and grinned. “Here to check them out? Come on, I’ve almost finished adding the structure around the circuitry.”

 

Excitedly, Rey hurried over to the worktable to look down at the two lightsabers. A few days ago, they had looked like delicate tubes of interlaced wires, but Rose was right, the structure around them was almost all in place. She could almost imagine carrying them into battle now. At their centers, nestled among the wires and pieces of metal, sat the two khyber crystals that Leia had managed to find for them, blue for Rey and green for Finn. 

 

“Don’t touch them, parts might still be a little hot. Do they look okay?” Rose asked, nervously. “The Jedi were kind of secretive about them, so there aren’t really manuals, and the pieces you brought back were pretty messed up. But I’m pretty sure they’ll, you know, turn on and do all the other things lightsabers should do.”

 

“They’re perfect, Rose!” Rey said, reaching out her hand but stopping short of touching the blue lightsaber. “They’re going to be absolutely beautiful.”

 

That made Rose blush, which was so cute that Rey had to laugh and kiss her on the cheek. 

 

***

 

The Resistance ship had been put into orbit on the other side of the planet, and it would take them a few minutes to get there. Hux engaged the autopilot and sat back in the pilot’s seat, scrubbing his hands over his face. 

 

“Well, that’s phase one done, I suppose,” he said. “They didn’t shoot us the moment we stepped off the ship, so I’d call it a success.”

 

“In fairness, they might be waiting to shoot us the moment we step off the ship onto _their_ ship,” Phasma said from the co-pilot’s seat. 

 

Hux glared at her, but then sighed. “If I’m being perfectly honest, I suspect this might be one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had.”

 

“It’s the best option,” Phasma said, patiently. She’d heard him doubt his plan half a hundred times already, but it didn’t change the facts. “We are not in a position to kill Ren without orchestrating a coup from the inside, which will take too much time and will likely not be successful, given how much fear Ren can command. This gets it done more quickly and with the structure of the First Order remaining intact.”

 

“And gives us the opportunity to scout out the resources and abilities of the Resistance,” Hux finished, running over the familiar conversational ground. “So that we can better prepare for the next phase of the war.”

 

“All we have to do is survive,” Phasma finished. “Did you get anything from any of them? Were you able to tell if FN-2187 is Force-sensitive, as well?”

 

Hux shook his head ruefully. “I tried, I tried to… I suppose, reach out to them, and this sounds ridiculous even as I’m saying it. I could feel the minds there, but I couldn’t tell whose was whose and I didn’t want to alert them to what I was doing. I was rarely even in the room with Ren when he was interrogating prisoners, I never paid attention to what he was doing.” He balled his hands into fists in his lap, frustrated. “I never thought I’d need to know how he was doing it. A rather critical oversight on my part, I’m finding.”

 

Phasma leaned across the gap between their chairs to bump her shoulder against his reassuringly. “You’ll get another chance. We’ll be sharing a ship with them for the foreseeable future.”

 

“What a joy,” Hux said flatly. “What was your assessment of them?”

 

Phasma’s first assessment was that they were almost disorienting in the open display of their emotions. Even FN-2187, who should really have known better, had apparently become an open book in his time with the Resistance. Hux was practically made of stone compared to them. She couldn’t understand it. Did they want everyone to know that they were each other’s weaknesses?

 

“Well,” she said, “the chain of command is unclear. Or I suppose ‘nonexistent’ would be a better term. The junior soldiers on the mission were constantly breaking their lines of sight to look at each other, though I couldn’t tell if that was because they were looking for guidance or because some combination of them are romantically involved. They all very obviously defer to the General, though. She is very firmly in charge of the operation, on their end.”

 

“She’s shorter than I expected,” Hux said. “There’s absolutely no reason she should be as intimidating as she is. It’s difficult to believe I was sitting across the table from the General who won the Battle of the Tannen System.”

 

“Maybe if you ask nicely, and tell her that it’s your very favorite battle, she’ll tell you about her strategy.”

 

“Oh, yes, I’m sure. Any General would jump at the chance to explain their thought processes to the General of the opposing army.” 

 

“You could try to read her mind.”

 

“I’d have to be far better at using the Force to attempt that.”

 

“Only one way to get better at anything,” Phasma said, and tapped a finger against her temple. “Come in, Armitage.”

 

His first instinct was to argue or put it off, but she was right. There was only one way to get better. He closed his eyes, which helped him concentrate better, and reached out to brush against her mind. 

 

“Can you feel that?” he asked.

 

“A bit,” she said. “Not as much as when you first started.”

 

“Does it still feel uneasy, like knowing you’re being watched?”

 

“Less uneasy, more just odd. Although,” she said with a slight smile, “that might be because I’ve come to associate it with you. Can you push it any farther?”

 

He didn’t really want to try. The prisoners that Ren had interrogated had always seemed to be in pain, and Hux had never thought of himself as a particularly gentle person. But the mind was a machine, when it came down to it, and he was good at handling delicate machinery. 

 

He imagined the surface of Starkiller, the planet they’d chosen for installation of the weapon. From far away, it seemed solid, a perfect, unbroken orb covering its molten core. But once they’d been started the surveys, they’d found gaps, fissures, caves, valleys, vents, all leading deeper, past the first layer. He tried to think of probing Phasma’s mind as doing a similar survey, looking for a way in. 

 

It probably only took him less than a minute of searching; time always seemed to stretch when he was using the Force. When he actually accomplished it, it was disorientingly quick. He thought he had found a way in, and then suddenly he was another layer deeper in her mind, trying to find the words to describe what he was experiencing. 

 

Her thoughts were all around him. He was put in mind of the rains on Arkanis, the afternoon downpours that would extend into evening. The rain would fall steady and quick and constant, but without violence. Her thoughts moved through her mind in the same way, a calm, ever-moving curtain. 

 

He could reach out to any of them. All he had to do was touch one, and he would be thinking the same thing as Phasma. 

 

That idea was so startling that he lost his focus and snapped back into his own mind with a force that made him blink his eyes open and gasp. He shook his head to clear it. His thoughts were scattered, jumping from _I can’t believe I did that_ to _Her mind suits her, it’s just like I would have imagined_ to _I haven’t thought about Arkanis in years_. 

 

When he glanced over at Phasma, he was alarmed to see that she was staring straight ahead, a slight furrow between her brows. 

 

“Phasma, I hurt you,” he said, feeling a little sick.

 

“No,” she said quickly. “No, it didn’t hurt, just… unsettled my emotions, momentarily. It felt strange. It’s nothing to worry about, Armitage.”

 

The alert beeped before he could say anything in response. They were in the final approach to the Resistance ship. He could see it out the window, an unremarkable older-model troop transport. He took the controls and flipped off the autopilot, slowing their speed and easing the ship into the right trajectory. 

 

After a moment, he cleared his throat and said, “I appreciate the trust you’re showing in me by not asking, but I wanted to assure you that I will never do that to you without your explicit permission.”

 

She nodded. “I had no doubt of that.” She reached over and rested her hand lightly on his shoulder, just for a moment. “But I am glad you said it, regardless.”

 

He couldn’t keep himself from smiling a little, even as he had to concentrate on guiding the ship into the transport’s hangar bay. Even as he had to swallow down his nervousness. Phase one was done, but everything after would be far more difficult. 


	2. The Calm Before the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: I've never read any Expanded Universe stuff, so I don't know if there was every any backstory for the Millennium Falcon. The idea of there being companies producing standardized hull models that can be personalized by the purchaser is something I got from the Ringworld series.

In the months since Crait, Rose thought she’d gotten to know Chewbacca (she couldn’t bring herself to call him Chewie, he was such a legend of the Rebellion) pretty well. It was obvious that, of the four of them, Rey was still Chewbacca’s favorite, followed closely by Finn, but he also clearly cared about all of them. 

 

Rose had earned his respect with her mechanical knowledge, and Chewbacca had showed her proudly around the Millennium Falcon, pointing out the different upgrades that he’d made over the years. Rose hadn’t started known how to speak Wookie before meeting him, and it was a notoriously difficult language, relying so much on tone and body language. Most of what she’d picked up had been technical vocabulary, but she felt like she’d gotten good at communicating with him. Not as good as Leia, who’d known him since the old days, or Rey, who had an almost scary knowledge of languages and ability to pick up new ones, but pretty good all the same.

 

However, she was pretty sure that everyone in the hangar bay could tell that Chewbacca was about three steps away from ripping the arms off Hux and Phasma as soon as they set down their ship beside the Falcon. Rose watched him nervously. His eyes were narrowed and fixed on the two First Order officers, his teeth slightly bared, and his usual loud trills had been replaced by a quiet, steady growling, which was unsettlingly weird. 

 

Poe had decided to stay in the cockpit, just in case, and Finn had holed himself up in one of the bunks, so it was just Rose, Rey, Chewbacca, and Leia in the hangar when the black ship swooped in and set down. Rose tried not to look scared and out of place. She’d broken into one of the First Order’s ships and helped Finn fight of Captain Phasma, after all. _You’re awesome_ , she thought to herself. _They should be scared of you._

 

As he strode across the hangar, Phasma at his side, Hux glanced over at the Falcon and slowed his steps, narrowing his eyes in something that might have been confusion or might have been disdain. _Uh-oh_ , Rose thought. If he insulted the Falcon, Chewbacca might actually rip off his arms. 

 

“Does that ship fly?” Hux asked, stopping in front of them. 

 

Rey crossed her arms and looked up at him defiantly. “‘That ship’ is the Millennium Falcon.”

 

Hux seemed genuinely shocked. “ _That_ is the Millennium Falcon? The ship that made the…” He trailed off, staring hard at the Falcon. “Wait,” he said, voice half astonished and half indignant, “is that a Kaldria T46 Half-Moon hull?”

 

Chewbacca made a surprised sound and cocked his head.

 

“That’s impossible!” Hux went on, almost like he was talking to himself rather than them. “Kaldria went out of business decades ago because their hull-and-engine models were so terrible. The only people who bought Kaldrias were desperate and couldn’t afford anything better.” Chewbacca growled. _Oh, good_ , Rose thought, _he’s pissed off again_. 

 

Hux didn’t seem to notice. “There’s no way that model could… There must have been extensive modifications,” he continued thoughtfully, and took a step toward the Falcon.

 

Chewbacca gave an angry roar and hunched his shoulders, preparing to spring forward, and Rose tensed. Before any of them could react, Captain Phasma’s hand darted out and grabbed General Hux by the back of his coat, pulling him back a step. Hux stumbled, then stood up straight again, hands clasped behind his back, and Phasma snapped back to attention. 

 

Hux cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, as if nothing had happened. “I should inform you that I have ensured that the false report indicating the girl’s presence on Mustafar will be picked up by the First Order. Given Ren’s disconnect from the intelligence machinery, it will likely be at least thirty hours before it comes to his attention. I would advise that we make our way to the planet immediately, to ensure that we are there before him.”

 

“My thoughts exactly,” Leia said. She inclined her head toward Rey as she continued, “Our pilots have plotted a course to Mustafar that takes us through several jumps in different directions, to hide our path from anyone who might be watching. It’ll take several hours, so they’ll alternate flying. Captain Dameron is on the bridge now, ready to start the flight.”

 

Hux nodded sharply, for all the world like he was receiving a report from a subordinate. Rose was very glad that Poe wasn’t there.

 

“We’ve made sure there are two wings of bunks ready,” Leia went on. “We’ll take the alpha wing, and you and the Captain can take the beta wing. Of the common areas, we’re using the canteen for storage, but we’ve set up a backup kitchen in one of the observation decks.”

 

Hux raised his eyebrows at that, but didn’t comment. Instead, he said, “Probably a good idea for us to stay out of each other’s way as much as possible. I’ll alert you as soon as I have any further word about Ren’s movements.” 

 

He inclined his head very slightly, then turned and swept out of the hangar, Phasma walking with perfectly steady steps behind him. As soon as they were out the door, Rose’s shoulders slumped with relief. 

 

“Well,” Leia said, “this should be fun. Rose, are all the precautions in place?”

 

Rose nodded. “Yessir, General. Ma’am. I put sensors every few feet in all the hallways and programmed them with the heat and electric signatures of every weapon I could think of. If they power up their blasters or voltage batons or whatever, a flash-bang grenade goes off and the blast doors close on that sector.”

 

“Good work,” Leia said with a smile, and Rose felt such a surge of pride that she almost wanted to jump up and down. “Well,” Leia sighed, “I suppose I should go make sure Poe’s ready to make the first jump. Be careful and stay safe, everyone.” She headed out of the hangar, with Rey right behind her.

 

Rose was about to leave, too, when she noticed that Chewbacca hadn’t moved. He was staring intently at the Falcon. 

 

He’d flown in that ship with Han Solo for so many years. She thought about how hard it had become to look at her necklace, now that it was a way to remember Paige rather than something that they shared. She thought about the ship that she and Poe had been talking about building together, something that was perfect for flying and that had an engine that ran as smooth as a pane of good glass, something that they could go everywhere in, with Finn and Rey at their sides. Her eyes burned with sympathetic tears.

 

She moved to stand beside Chewbacca. She’d have to stand on her tiptoes to get her hand onto his shoulder, so she rested it on his arm instead. He made a soft, sad sound, then turned to her, patted her gently on the top of her head, and left the hangar.   

 

***

 

Phasma ducked back into the extra room that they’d decided to use for training. She’d decided to go armorless and barefoot to make herself quieter, but she didn’t actually have any clothes besides her black underarmor shirt and tights. She’d had to borrow a spare pair of Armitage’s uniform pants and a shirt to wear over them, just so that, if she was spotted, she wouldn’t appear in front of the Resistance in something skin-tight. The shirt was irritatingly tight across her shoulders and chest; she finally gave up trying to find a comfortable position for her arms and just started unbuttoning it as she took a seat next to him on the bunk.

 

“Did they see you?” he asked.

 

“No, I didn’t get close enough for that,” she answered, sliding the shirt off her shoulders and folding it carefully. “Just close enough to determine where they were. Ready?”

 

He took a steadying breath and nodded. “Alright, the General and the Wookiee are on the observation deck, the one that is still an observation deck. The pilot and the mechanic are in the space they’ve got set up as a canteen. The scavenger girl is on the bridge, flying. FN-2187 is in one of the bunk rooms in their wing. How did I do?”

 

“All correct! Or at least for all of them but FN-2187, he was the only one I couldn’t track down. I thought it would be too difficult to come up with an explanation for being in their bunk section, so I didn’t go there.”

 

“Really?” Armitage asked, looking surprised. “I actually got them right?”

 

“It’s like everything in the galaxy, it just takes practice. Did you get anything else from them?”

 

“I didn’t want to go too far into the minds of the Force-sensitive ones. I thought they would be more likely to be able to tell that something was going on. I think… the pilot seemed apprehensive about something. Or just generally uncomfortable.”

 

“I would hazard a guess that our presence on his ship might have something to do with it,” Phasma replied. “I get the feeling he might not like us very much.”

 

Armitage gave her a small smile, which made her happier than such a mild gesture warranted. The months since the destruction of the Supremacy and Ren’s ascension to power had been hard on him, and she knew, despite his protests to the contrary, that he hadn’t been eating or sleeping nearly enough. The fact that she could still make him smile seemed highly significant, somehow. 

 

“Well, then,” she said, getting up and retrieving the two folded training staves she had deposited in the room. With a practiced flick of her wrists, she extended them and locked them in their unfolded position. Then she put them in the corners on either side of the far wall of the room. 

 

“I’m going to stand here,” she said, taking up a position in the center of the room and pointing at the floor at her feet, “and you’re going to stand in front of the bunk,” she stared at him until he stood up, “and you’re going to try to hit me with the staves.”

 

He looked across the room at them, then back at her. “Hit you with…?”

 

“Throw them at me with the Force,” she said. “That’s something that Force-users do, isn’t it, in addition to reading minds? They pick things up and move them around. You should practice that, as well.”

 

He pursed his lips and stared at one of the staves. She waited for a long moment, wondering if he was actually concentrating on moving them or if he was concentrating on bitter thoughts about how much he didn’t want to. The staff didn’t move.

 

Finally, he huffed an irritated breath and turned his head to stare just as hard at the staff in the opposite corner. She felt worry start to twist in the pit of her stomach. He was getting that brittle look in his eyes that he got when he thought he was failing at something. 

 

“Maybe if you hold out your hands toward your target?” Phasma suggested. “Even Ren has to do that sometimes. I’ve seen it.” She didn’t mention that she’d only seen him do that when he was stopping a blaster bolt in midair, not when he was moving completely stationary objects. 

 

Armitage looked at his hands for a moment, then held them up awkwardly, palms out and facing the staff.

 

Nothing happened. Armitage glared at the staff, but it didn’t seem to help.

 

Phasma had a sudden idea and said, “Close your eyes and imagine that I’m Ren.” He raised an incredulous eyebrow at her. “He always seems angry when he’s using the Force. It could help.”

 

“Maybe,” he said doubtfully, but he turned back toward the staff, closed his eyes, and held up his hands again. He furrowed his brows and clenched his jaw so hard she thought she could almost hear his teeth grinding together. 

 

The staff turned slightly against the wall, and then, with a sudden movement, sprang away from the wall, hit the floor, and skidded in Phasma’s direction, only stopping when it bumped up against her foot. 

 

“Ha!” she said, triumphantly, and looked back up at Armitage. He had his eyes open, staring at the staff in complete shock. 

 

“I did it,” he said, disbelievingly. 

 

“Of course you did,” she responded. “You need practice, of course, but you are completely capable of mastering this.”

 

He met her eyes with a broad, genuine smile that she couldn’t help but return. 

 

He sniffed a little and wrinkled his nose, and his smile was lost in a frown. “Ugh,” he said, “my nose is running, what…” He touched his hand to his nose, and it came away red. 

 

“Armitage,” she said in alarm, “you’re bleeding!”

 

“That’s completely disgusting,” he said, trying to scrape the blood off his fingers with his other hand. “It’s only a few drops of blood, nothing to be concerned about.”

 

“What happened?” she asked.

 

“I have no idea, does this junker not have proper atmospheric scrubbers? It would be just like the Resistance to travel around in a ship with failing life support systems.” He tipped his head back with an irritated noise.

 

Phasma frowned. “Was it… Was it the Force?”

 

He shook his head. “I’ve never read anything to indicate that the Force can be turned back to harm the user. Only other people. And I’ve never used it accidentally.”

 

Phasma wasn’t convinced. “We don’t know everything about it.”

 

“We know enough. Really, it’s only a nosebleed. There are more reasonable explanations. My health has never been particularly robust, even at the best of times.”

 

Reluctantly, she nodded. “Fair point. At any rate, I think that’s enough training for today.”

 

He made a cursory, completely ineffectual attempt to hide his relief at that, and sat back on the bunk, idly unfolding and refolding the shirt she’d borrowed. She crossed the room and sat next to him.

 

“Should I get you a tissue, or something?” she asked. 

 

“No, look, it’s already stopped. Like I said, just a few drops of blood, nothing to worry about.” She was still uneasy, but she let it go. “Do you think we should talk about Mustafar?” he asked.

 

She shrugged. “I think we’ve already discussed everything we can with the information available to us. It’s reasonable to assume the Resistance has an agenda of their own, or are making their own plans to try to turn the situation to their advantage. We should be prepared for attempts to kill or capture us once Ren is out of the way. But we won’t be able to deal with that until Ren takes the bait, or until the Resistance shows its hand. All the same, I’ll won’t be going anywhere without a couple of concealed weapons.”

 

“I would expect nothing less,” Armitage said, tapping his sleeve where he kept his knife hidden. Phasma had strapped a belt of flat, magnetic stun grenades around her hips, where they’d be covered by the pants she was wearing. She still had her blaster, but she knew that that was the angle of attack that the Resistance would be expecting.  

 

“Is something bothering you?” she asked him, after she’d watched him stare at the ground for a long moment. 

 

He sighed. “I’m irritated by how much I want to board the Millennium Falcon.”

 

“Why?” she asked, surprised, then thought better of her tone and asked, “I mean, why that ship in particular?” She may not understand his interest in fast ships, but that didn’t mean it didn’t matter. 

 

“I want to see if I’m right about the modifications they made to the hull and engine. I know what I would have done, of course, but I… I suppose I just want to see. It isn’t often I’m confronted by an interesting ship that I’ve been denied access to.” He cleared his throat, and she thought he flushed a little. “Besides, it’s a famous ship. Everyone at the Academy, or at least everyone who did Ship and Weapons Engineering, was curious about it. It was involved in so many of the old Imperial battles.”

 

“There aren’t any Imperial ships as famous?” Phasma asked.

 

Armitage laughed and shook his head. “The Empire wasn’t exactly encouraging its pilots and mechanics to make spur-of-the-moment changes to their ships. Although, in the case of the Millennium Falcon… It’s frustrating!” He curled his hands into fists and slammed them against his legs. “That Wookiee must be a very competent mechanic. He turned a hull and engine that were already garbage when they were designed fifty years ago into a ship that was legendary for its speed. That girl, too, she was able to work her way into our systems. Their pilot might be insufferable, but he can fly well, that much was clear during their bomb attack on the fleet, and General Organa is obviously one of the greatest tacticians of her generation. I just don’t understand how the Resistance manages to attract these people. Why do they want a Republic at all? What are they hoping to gain? Surely they’d be better off exercising their talents in safety, in stability. I simply… I don’t understand.”

 

Phasma didn’t understand it, either. Part of her wanted to shake FN-2187 by his shoulders, demand he explain to her what the hell he had been thinking. It didn’t make sense. She sighed and leaned toward him. He saw her movement and met her in the middle, their shoulders pressed together. It was a startling feeling without her armor as a barrier. She could feel the warmth of his skin through her shirt. 

 

“If it hadn’t been for the Republic and the Resistance, and this war, perhaps I would have been an engineer,” he said, softly. “Perhaps I’d spend all my days building ships, figuring out ways to make them better.”

 

She smiled. “Perhaps I would have been a scientist,” she replied. “I would have had rooms and rooms of samples and slides. And a garden.” It was more likely that she would have been a farmer, like her parents, but it felt good to imagine. It wasn’t as if either option were real, anyway. She was a Stormtrooper, and that was what she would always be.

 

***

 

Poe sat at the table in the little makeshift canteen and stared into the dregs of his cup of coffee, swirling them around and watching the patterns the grounds made. 

 

“Poe?” Rose asked from across the table. “Anyone home? Hello?”

 

He blinked and shook his head, trying to smile at her. “Sorry about that. What were you saying?”

 

She shrugged. “Nothing, really. I was just wondering if you were okay. You seemed pretty lost.”

 

“I have to talk to Leia,” he said. “I mean really talk to her. I’ve wanted to, but I keep putting it off and making excuses. It’s… It’s bad.”

 

She reached across the table and squeezed his free hand. “You should do it now.” When he didn’t move, she gave him an unimpressed look. “You said it yourself, you shouldn’t keep putting it off. It isn’t fair to either of you. You should just get up and go find her right now.”

 

He took a steadying breath and stood up. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll go find her. I think she’s in the observation deck.” 

 

“Good,” she said, with an encouraging smile. 

 

“So,” he said, grinning at her, “since I’m going to go find Leia immediately, you’re going to take care of cleaning up my coffee cup, right?”

 

She stuck out her tongue at him, crumpling up one of the napkins on the table and throwing it at him. He made a show of ducking, even though the ball of paper didn’t come anywhere close to hitting him, and ran out of the room, laughing. 

 

His smile faded and his steps slowed down as he got closer to the cockpit, but he made it there eventually. He took a deep breath and stepped through the door. 

 

He was surprised, first, and then his heart seemed to sink all the way into his feet. Leia was standing with Chewie in front of the ship’s windows, wrapped up in the Wookie’s arms and sobbing into his chest. Chewie was, for once, completely silent, patting her hair softly with one massive paw.

 

Poe felt awful, especially when Chewie looked up at him and growled slightly. Poe turned to go, but Leia pulled away from Chewie and wiped her eyes, pulling herself together with some difficulty. 

 

“It’s alright,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to Poe anyway.”

 

Chewie trilled an answer, and Leia nodded. “Thank you,” she said, and the Wookiee left, brushing past Poe and giving him a hard stare on his way out. 

 

“Are you alright?” Poe asked, stupidly. Of course she wasn’t alright. 

 

Leia shrugged and took a seat in front of the viewing window. After a moment of hesitation, Poe took the seat beside her. 

 

“It’s been a hard year,” Leia said. “For everyone, I know, but with Han, and Luke, and Amilyn… It just seems like there’s no time to mourn one loss before another comes crashing in.”

 

Poe nodded, throat feeling tight and eyes stinging. She didn’t mention the other, terrible losses: her son, seeming to be lost all over again with every new terrible crime he committed. Her parents and her entire planet, when she was only nineteen. He remembered the devastation he’d felt when his own parents had died, and was amazed all over again at how strong she had always been. It made him sick that he’d added to her losses. 

 

He cleared his throat. “Leia, I… I want to apologize. For everything that happened, for not listening to you, or to anyone. I sent Finn and Rose on a mission that almost got them killed, and I… I’m so, so sorry about Vice Admiral Holdo. It was my fault. I just… I just messed up. Bad. I’m sorry.”

 

He trailed off. He wasn’t sure what else he could say, how he could put words to the guilt that was roiling in him. He blinked quickly, determined not to cry. He didn’t think he had the right to; after all, the loss had been Leia’s.

 

She was silent for what felt like an eternity. Finally, she sighed and said, “Yeah, you did. You messed up.” He hunched his shoulders. “Look at me, Poe.” Reluctantly, he did. “I’ve known you since before you could walk. I love you, Poe, you know that. I know you make stupid decisions sometimes, but your mistakes aren’t who you are. I know how much good you’re capable of. You messed up, yeah, but that’s only unforgivable if you don’t learn anything from it.”

 

“I did. Learn something, I mean. I’ll do better next time.”

 

Her eyes were still red and wet from crying, but she gave him sad smile and put her hand on his shoulder, then moved it to the top of her head so she could mess up his hair the way she had when he’d been a child. “That’s all any of us can do. Try to be better today than we were yesterday. If we can do that, the whole galaxy will end up better.”

 

He smiled, too, and turned to look out the window at the stars.

 

“Besides,” she said, after a moment, “if you want to talk about who’s fault it is, you won’t find anyone better to blame than the guy in the other wing of the ship.”

 

Poe laughed and said, “Well, since you probably won’t get an apology from him, you’ll have to make do with mine.”

 

“I appreciate it, Poe,” she said, seriously. “I really do.” 

 

***

 

Day One of the worst truce in galactic history ended with them coming out of hyperspace and Poe maneuvering the troop transport into a stationary orbit above Mustafar’s smallest moon, where they’d be relatively hidden from anyone approaching the planet. 

 

Finn hadn’t really done much that day, but he was still so exhausted that he fell asleep almost immediately after falling into the extra-large bed they’d made by pushing three mattresses together on the floor of one of the bunk rooms. 

 

He dreamed that he had to put on his old Stormtrooper armor to go on a mission to rescue Rey, Poe, and Rose, but that every time he reached for one of the armor pieces, he found that it was the chrome silver of Phasma’s armor, rather than the white and black of his own. He knew that if he put on any of Phasma’s armor, something truly terrible would happen to him, he’d end up doing something monstrous, but he couldn’t save the others without his armor on. He kept reaching for different pieces, throwing them aside in increasing desperation, until he snapped awake with his heart pounding and sweat covering his face. 

 

He was on his back with Poe curled into him on one side and Rose on the other, Rey spooned up behind Rose on the far side of the bed. It was a testament to how hard Poe and Rose slept that he managed to carefully disentangle himself from them and wiggle off the foot of the bed, but finally he was in the hall outside the bunk room, leaning against the wall and trying to still the shaking in his hands.

 

He felt the gentle brush against his mind even before the door swished open again and Rey stepped out to join him. 

 

“Sorry for waking you,” he said. 

 

She smiled at him. “Not a problem. I don’t need much sleep.” He’d noticed that about her, the way she rarely slept the whole night through and often got by on short naps whenever she needed them. He supposed that was left over from her life on Jakku, the same way he got uncomfortable and antsy when he didn’t have his day already scheduled out when he woke up. 

 

She was looking at him expectantly, so he muttered, “I just couldn’t sleep. Bad dreams.”

 

“You know if they try anything, we’ll all help you beat them up, right?” she asked. “You’re not alone.”

 

He shook his head. “It’s not that. I’m not scared of them, not anymore. If anyone should be scared, it’s them.” She grinned at him, and he hesitantly smiled back. “It’s just that… Having them on board the ship… The thing I’m scared of is being dragged back. I don’t think I’ve stopped being scared of that yet. Not just being pulled back into the First Order, but to that whole way of being. Like the only thing I was good for was fighting. Seeing them, seeing Phasma… I just got so angry, but it wasn’t just anger, it was fear that I’d never get a chance to stop fighting. That it really was…” He swallowed and forced out the hardest words. “That it’s all I can do. All I know how to do.”

 

“Finn,” Rey said firmly, resting her hand on his shoulder. “That isn’t all you can do. That isn’t all you _are_. You are so, so much more.”

 

“Rey, can I,” he sighed, “can I tell you something?”

 

“Of course. Anything.”

 

He took a deep breath and said, “I’m not sure how I feel about the Force. Being able to use it, I mean.” He saw the surprise on her face, and he barreled on before she could say anything. “I feel ungrateful, like I’m turning down a gift, because I know it helped me on Starkiller. It’s good that I can use it, and I can help you. And I’m glad that Rose is making me a Lightsaber. But… I’m not sure I want to be a warrior. Or a Knight. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life fighting. I want to put my weapons down someday. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, as long as it’s someday.”

 

Rey squeezed his shoulder, then took a step back. “Watch this, Finn,” she said with a smile, then shut her eyes and held up one hand, taking a deep breath. For a second, he didn’t realize what she was doing, although he could feel the Force moving through her and gathering around her. Then he caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. From all the darkened, forgotten corners of the hallway, little fragments and grains of dust were flying, accumulating an inch above her palm and beginning to swirl like a gray storm. 

 

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Did you see what I did?” she asked. 

 

“I think so,” he said, reaching out his own hand and his own grasp of the Force. Their fingertips brushed, and their minds met in the middle, and without breaking up the motion of the dust, she sent it forward to hover over his hand, and he caught it there. He shaped the particles of dust, bringing them closer together until they had formed a slowly revolving orb like a planet over his palm. 

 

“There’s more to the Force than fighting, I know it,” Rey said. “There’s more than just the Jedi against the Sith. When this war is over, we’ll be safe and free, and we’ll be able to decide how we use the Force. There will be so much we can build and learn and see. We’ll be able to explore the whole galaxy with the Force! You and me and Poe and Rose, we’ll find everything there is to find.”

 

She sounded so certain, and her eyes were so bright and happy. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, or at least how much he appreciated the hope she had brought into his life when he had thought there was none to be found. But he didn’t know if it was okay, if it would be welcome. Part of him was still certain that he would mess this relationship up.

 

So instead of saying anything, he flicked his wrist to toss the dust in a glittering gray arc across the hallway and stepped forward to pull Rey into his arms. It was still so strange to be this close to another person without fighting them, without being full of adrenaline and afraid for his life. It felt so peaceful.

 

She pulled back far enough to kiss him, her lips soft against his. “Come on,” she said. “You should get some more sleep.”

 

Rose and Poe had rolled together in their absence, so he got back into the bed behind Poe, burying his face in Poe’s hair and feeling Rey’s arm wrapped loosely around his waist. He fell asleep smiling.


	3. All's Fair in Love and War

The meeting that Leia had called in the kitchen/observation deck the next morning began with tense silence, Resistance and First Order watching each other suspiciously out of the corners of their eyes as almost everyone clustered around the coffee machine and poured themselves cups. Rey hung back (she thought coffee tasted like dirt and couldn’t understand Poe’s and Rose’s almost worshipful love of it); she kept her eyes on Captain Phasma, the only other person abstaining. Finally everyone had what they needed and had sat down at the table. 

 

“As soon as he lands and can no longer fire back, we hit him with everything we have and blast him off the surface of the planet,” Hux said before anyone else could speak. “Our ship has enough firepower to make a sizable dent, as does the Millennium Falcon, from what I’ve heard. It is clearly the most reasonable course of action.”

 

Rey smoothed her palms over the table, carefully keeping her voice calm. “That’s not a good idea,” she said. “The Force can be used to create illusions and projections. You saw it yourself on Crait. We need to be on the planet to be completely sure that we’ve brought him down.”

 

Hux glared at her, and she glared back. She didn’t let her gaze waver. Finally, Hux’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Fine,” he said, and took a sip of his coffee. “What’s your alternative plan?”

 

“We set the Falcon down a little way outside Vader’s stronghold,” Rey said. “Just far enough away that it looks like we tried to hide it. It’s what he’ll expect to see. Then we can wait to ambush him inside the fortress.”

 

“Inside?” Phasma said, her voice slightly echoing and distorted from inside her helmet. Rey thought it was completely ridiculous that she was still wearing it aboard the ship, but Finn said that all the Stormtroopers were expected to do that. “It would make more sense to spring the trap outside. If something goes wrong, it will be more difficult for Ren to impede our escape route to the Falcon.”

 

“It’ll be harder to hide,” Leia chimed in, lending her authority to the argument. “If Ren becomes even the slightest bit suspicious, we’ll lose our chance to surprise him. It will be easier to spring the trap from inside the building.” 

 

_And it will be easier to lose the two of you when I need to_ , Rey thought. For a moment, she thought one of them was going to argue, but Leia stared them down with perfect confidence.

 

Finally, Hux sighed and said, “Fine. I will continue monitoring the intelligence reports. As soon as Ren leaves his ship, we should relocate to the planet’s surface.”

 

“Agreed,” Leia said. 

 

“Then if that’s all,” Hux said. He drained his cup, stood to refill it, and left the room with it, Phasma following behind him. Rey sighed with relief. 

 

“Well, that was as unpleasant as expected,” Poe said, pushing back his chair. Chewie roared in agreement. 

 

“Rey,” Leia said as the others filed out. “Can I talk to you?”

 

“Of course.”

 

Leia sighed and pulled her into a hug. Rey returned it tightly. “I know there isn’t any way to dissuade you from what you’re trying to do, but I just want to ask you to be careful. I can’t believe I’m sending all of you out there and I’m not coming with you.”

 

Rey pulled back, but held on to Leia’s shoulders. “The Resistance will fall apart without you. Now more than ever. No matter what happens, you have to survive this. And I… I’ll try to talk to Ben, if I can.”

 

Leia shook her head. “I wish I could say it’s what I want you to do, but I can’t. Not after Han. Sometimes… Sometimes you have to let yourself admit that the person you love is lost. Your compassion is important, but it’ll be important to the Republic, too, when we win this war. I want you to live to see it. Protect yourself, protect your friends, and come back. That’s the most important thing.”

 

***

 

In an effort to avoid accidentally meeting Hux or Phasma, Poe had decided to hole himself up in Rose’s workshop and watch Rey and Finn try out their lightsabers for the first time. The three of them sat against one wall, watching Rose busily finishing the last touches. 

 

Poe flipped through the holo menu display on his music player, trying to pick the next song. Finn leaned over his shoulder, and Rey leaned over Finn’s shoulder, watching him scroll through.

 

“I can’t believe there’s so _much_ ,” Finn said wonderingly. “I never thought there were so many people in the galaxy just making music.”

 

“There’s more than this,” Poe said. He secretly loved being the others’ guide to things they’d never been able to experience before. “This is just my collection, there’s pretty much infinite music in the galaxy. Oh, hey, this one, I think you’ll like this one, Rose, it’s kind of like the group we were listening to the other day.” He selected the song with a flick of his fingers. 

 

“Mm-hm, good,” Rose said distractedly, fiddling with a screw in the hilt of one of the sabers. 

 

“How do you know so much about music?” Rey asked. “How did you find it all out?”

 

“It was kind of my parents’ thing,” Poe answered. “They actually met at a secret concert, for this group that had been banned by the Emperor before he dissolved the Senate. My mom was already part of the Rebellion, and she brought my dad in, and that’s, you know, how it all started.” 

 

Finn and Rey were watching him avidly, and even Rose had looked up from her work. He had thought, at first, that he had to make his stories interesting and only talk about the most exciting parts of his life, but he’d quickly realized that what they wanted to hear about was the ordinary things, the walks in the park with his dad or the times that his mom let him sit on her lap and learn the controls of her ship. Those were the things that they’d missed out on. “So they were always playing music and talking to me about it,” he finished. “I still listen to a lot of the stuff that they liked. It’s good for dancing.”

 

Rey laughed and wrinkled up her nose the way she did when she was delighted by something. “Dancing?” she asked. “Do you really do that?”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Poe answered. “I love dancing.”

 

“You have to teach us!” Rey said, clapping her hands together with excitement.

 

“No way,” Rose said, shaking her head and running a scanner over the lightsabers. “Not me. I’ve got two left feet, I’d be terrible at it.”

 

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Poe said. “I bet you’d be a great dancer. I’ll absolutely teach you.” Poe stood up and offered his hand to Finn, saying in a mock-serious voice, “May I have this dance, sir?”

 

Finn laughed and let Poe pull him to his feet, but before they could begin, they heard the scanner Rose was holding make a happy-sounding chirp. Both Finn’s and Rey’s attention was on her immediately. 

 

“Are they done?” Rey said, launching herself to her feet. 

 

“Should be,” Rose said. “I’ve double- and triple-checked the connections, and everything should be ready. There’s only one way to know for sure.” She held one out to Rey. “Start them up.”

 

Rey and Finn each picked up a lightsaber and stood facing each other. Rose ducked out of their way and sat down next to Poe against the wall. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly as they watched.

 

Finn and Rey took deep breaths and flicked the sabers on at the same time. There was a crackle, and Rose made a small, dismayed sound, but then, with an electric buzz that set all of Poe’s nerves on edge, both lightsabers ignited, green and blue illumination sparking into existence.

 

“Yes!” Rose yelled, throwing her arms around Poe’s shoulders.

 

“Shall we?” Finn asked Rey, grinning. 

 

“After you,” she answered.

 

They started with slow swings and parries, wide movements of their arms that gradually became faster and faster until they were whipping their sabers at each other almost too quickly for the eye to follow. Poe and Rose hung onto each other, their hearts in their throats. 

 

Then, with an exhilarated laugh, Rey stepped back away from Finn and threw her lightsaber into the air. It spun end over end, slicing down toward her, and she caught it by the hilt without looking at it and brought it around toward Finn’s head. Finn stood completely still except for his arm, which swept up to catch the blade of her saber against his own. 

 

Neither Poe nor Rose realized they’d made embarrassingly high-pitched noises of terror until Rey and Finn turned to look at them, bemused. 

 

“You two are going to kill each other!” Rose exclaimed, breathless.

 

“We won’t,” Finn said, shutting down his lightsaber. After a moment, Rey did the same. “We’re letting each other know what we’re going to do.” He tapped his temple. “This is just training, we’re not going to hurt each other.”

 

“Remind me to never come to your training again,” Poe said, slightly grumpy in the wake of his fear. “You were barely watching what you were doing!”

 

“We were so!” Rey protested. “We just weren’t watching with our eyes. We had everything under control.”

 

But they put down the sabers and came to sit with Poe and Rose. “It’s a bit less scary when you can keep track of things with the Force,” Rey said. 

 

“We promise we won’t do anything stupid,” Finn said. “Well, at least until we go fight Kylo Ren. That might be a little stupid.”

 

“We’ll be alright,” Rey said. “We’ve been getting better and better these past months, and Ren has had to deal with running the First Order. Plus, we’ll have Poe and Rose and Chewie to guard our backs. We’re going to win.”

 

“Although,” Poe said, “we might have our hands full keeping Hux and Phasma from shooting you when your backs are turned.”

 

Finn grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”

 

“Maybe we could find some way to set them up at the front of our trap,” Poe mused, only half-joking. “See if maybe the two of them and Ren can all take each other out.”

 

“It would make our lives easier,” Rose said. Finn snorted with laughter. Rey stayed quiet, although she smiled slightly. 

 

“I don’t know how he even sleeps at night,” Poe said. He hoped he was keeping his voice light, but thought his anger was probably bleeding through. “How many people were living in the Hosnian System? Billions. They weren’t even soldiers.”

 

“In the First Order…” Finn trailed off and shook his head.

 

“What?” Rose asked him. 

 

Finn shrugged. “I mean, I don’t really know how much the officers actually believe it, but the Stormtroopers… There was this saying that they used to drill into our heads, even before we were activated for combat. They used to tell us that there’s no such thing as a noncombatant. War belongs to everyone, so everyone is a soldier. Like I said, though, I don’t know if the higher officers actually believed it or if they just told us that so we’d feel better about killing people.”

 

Poe didn’t know what to say to that. It was a horrible thing to imagine.

 

Finn looked down at the ground. “I just always accepted that that was how it was. I didn’t want to be a Stormtrooper, but there was a war, so everyone had to fight. I didn’t realize what it actually meant until we were at that village. Until we were ordered to kill everyone, people who were just trying to have ordinary lives until we showed up to destroy them. I’d always had this dream that someday I’d be able to find my family again, and go home, but I just realized that there wouldn’t be any point to that. There wouldn’t be any point to settling down or caring about anyone or anything if we were all just going to be dragged back into the war whether we liked it or not. If there wasn’t any way to be a noncombatant. All I wanted to do after that was get away.”

 

Poe leaned against him, and on Finn’s other side, Rey rested her head on his shoulder. Rose stretched out on the ground with her head in Finn’s lap. There wasn’t anything that they could say to erase all the hurt and terror, but they could imagine that, one day, there would be a time when they wouldn’t have to fight anymore.

 

***

 

“Alright,” Armitage told her, voice muffled, “I’m willing to admit you may have been right about the Force.”

 

Phasma grimly tore open the packaging on the sterile wipes in her field medical kit and made her way back across the room to him. He had his head tilted back and his hand cupped over his nose. Rivulets of blood were running over his wrist and onto his forearm. He also had his left eye squinted shut. 

 

“Here,” Phasma said, pushing his hand gently aside and holding one of the wipes against his nose. “What’s happening to your eye?”

 

“Nothing,” he answered. She gave him an unimpressed look. “Just… just a bit of a headache,” he amended. She frowned in worry. By the way he was gritting his teeth, it was more painful than he was trying to let on.

 

“We should stop training for the day,” she said, passing him another of the wipes so he could wash off his hands. 

 

“This is ridiculous,” he protested. “We could be on Mustafar tomorrow facing down Ren, what the hell is _wrong_ with me?”

 

“If you try to run too far too fast, you pull a muscle or fracture a bone,” Phasma said, trying to be reassuring despite the fact that she was just as troubled as he was. “It’s probably something similar.”

 

“We don’t have time for this. We don’t have time for me to be failing at this.”

 

“You’re not failing. You moved both the staves at once.”

 

“Yes, and then the inside of my skull exploded. That’s not exactly ideal in a battlefield setting.”

 

He had his other eye half-closed now, too, and kept moving his head as if he was avoiding having too much light on his face. Phasma sighed and wiped the last of the blood away. “You should lie down. Perhaps some sleep would help.”

 

Armitage shook his head. “There has to be something else I can do to prepare, even if I’ve managed to make myself unfit for training.”

 

“Please. Please get some rest. I would feel reassured if you did.” She felt a bit guilty at the conflicted look on his face, but if he couldn’t be swayed by appeals to his own well-being, she’d have to use the more serious weapons in her arsenal.

 

He shook his head, then winced and looked vaguely ill at the motion. “You may be right. Alright, fine.”

 

She walked with him to his bunk and had to steady him several times when he stumbled, a fact that they both avoided mentioning. Once the door had closed behind him, she stood deep in thought, staring at the wall of the corridor. Finally, she made her decision and crossed to her own bunk.

 

She set her helmet safely on the bed and turned to leave. Then she paused and reconsidered. She had decided to leave her helmet so that she would appear less threatening, but perhaps it would be best to leave all of her armor. Be just a person asking a question of another person sharing her ship. 

 

She stripped off the armor, then pulled on her borrowed pants over her underarmor and tucked the bottom of the legs into her silver boots. She didn’t have any other shoes. After a brief internal debate about possible hiding places in her clothes, she decided to leave her blaster, as well. She still had her belt of stun grenades, after all. 

 

She caught a glimpse of herself in the bunk’s mirror on her way out. She could hardly recognize herself. She grimaced and headed off to find the scavenger girl. 

 

The first place she checked was the make-shift canteen, and as it turned out, that was where the girl was. Unfortunately, she wasn’t alone; FN-2187, the pilot, and the mechanic were all there, too, sitting around the table and apparently engaged in some amusing conversation. 

 

They all stopped talking and looked up, startled, when she walked in. The pilot sprang to his feet in alarm and shouted, “Who the hell are you? How did you get on our ship?”

 

FN-2187 waved a hand to catch the pilot’s attention and said, “It’s fine, Poe. That’s Captain Phasma. Just, you know, without the helmet.”

 

“Oh,” Poe said, and returned to his seat, still glaring at her suspiciously. She suppressed a sigh. Maybe it would have been better if she’d worn her armor.

 

“What do you want?” the mechanic said in a hard voice. FN-2187 was looking at her with a smirk that she could only assume was a reaction to the burns on her face. Phasma ignored both of them and met the scavenger girl’s eyes.

 

“I had some questions I wanted to ask you, Rey, if you had a moment,” she said calmly. “I thought they might have a bearing on our eventual confrontation with Ren.”

 

For some reason, that made the girl look nervous, and she glanced to left and right at her companions. “I thought we’d gone over everything at the meeting,” she said. “What did you have questions about?”

 

“The Force, actually,” Phasma answered, keeping her voice carefully neutral. “And its use.”

 

“Okay, fine,” Rey said, conspicuously not looking at FN-2187. Phasma restrained the urge to roll her eyes. “Ask away.”

 

“Does it hurt?”

 

The question seemed to take Rey completely aback. “Does it… hurt? What do you mean?”

 

“Does it harm the user to wield? Or is there some kind of threshold at which it begins to drain or degrade the user?”

 

“Degrade, what, like a machine?” Rey shook her head with a disbelieving laugh. “No, that’s not how it is at all. It gets easier, feels more natural, every time you use it. You can overexert yourself, exhaust yourself,” the girl briefly looked troubled and sad when she said that, “but only with something massive. The Force is a part of the user, it doesn’t hurt them.”

 

“Only the people around them,” Phasma said. Her frustration was making her unguarded. 

 

“Not all Force users are Ren,” FN-2187 snapped. Phasma wondered if he was he angry on the scavenger girl’s behalf or his own.

 

“Indeed,” Phasma said expressionlessly, turning to go. The discomfort of being around these enemies was mingling with her worry about Armitage and her disappointment at being unable to find out something to help him, making her feel scattered and jumpy. “Thank you for your time.”

 

Before she could make it out the door, FN-2187 had pushed back his chair and sprang to his feet, calling harshly after her, “At least Rey thinks for herself and tries to make the galaxy better, instead of following a murderer’s orders like a dog.”

 

_Attack dog_ , the old, painful words echoed in her head. It was too much when she was already so tense. She whirled back to the room and snapped, “What I do with my orders is my own damn business.”

 

“Is it just like entering commands into a computer?” FN-2187 went on, voice mocking. “Do you even think about what he tells you to do? Or does he say jump and you…”

 

“I follow his orders because I _respect him_!” she cut him off. Her voice had risen nearly to a shout. “I follow his orders because he earned it! He’s the only one I trust to fix what’s broken in this galaxy!”

 

“To fix what’s broken?” FN-2187 shouted back in disbelief. “How, by kidnapping children to turn them into killers?”

 

“And what was the alternative?” Phasma shot back. “The Republic wasn’t there to protect my family, or yours, FN-2187. The First Order was.”

 

“My name is _Finn_ ,” he answered, fists clenched at his sides, “and the only thing we needed protection from _was_ the First Order. They’re the ones who took us!”

 

“Who would it have been, if not the First Order?” Phasma asked. She was so frustrated that he didn’t seem to be able to understand. “Would it have been raiders, or slavers? Would they have taken my entire family, instead of just me? The Republic _wasn’t there_! They had left us on our own! The First Order offered my family protection, and all they asked in return was me. I’ve been protecting my family, every family, for 24 years, and I’m not going to simply run away because the cost to me was high!”

 

She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room before he could answer. If she didn’t, she knew, she would just keep yelling, making an ass of herself. This argument wasn’t helping her at all. 

 

By the time she’d made it back to their wing of bunks, she had calmed down enough to regret her outburst. She was supposed to have herself under better control than that. 

 

She paused in front of Armitage’s door. She wanted to knock, see if he felt any better, but he might have actually managed to fall asleep, in which case she couldn’t justify interrupting him. Instead, she went back to their training room and snapped open the training staves, whirling them into form after form, striking at imaginary enemies on all sides until she was as exhausted in her body as she was in her mind.

 

***

 

Hux was absolutely appalled, when he finally woke up, to see how much time he had wasted recovering from his moment of weakness. He could think of half a hundred things he could have been doing in that time that would have been of benefit to the First Order. But at least his headache was gone. 

 

He stood up and stretched, pulling his datapad close to look at what messages and reports had been piling up during his clandestine absence. He was relieved to see that he hadn’t missed any of Ren’s movements, but he was impatient for something to happen. Waiting was driving him insane. 

 

After a few minutes, he threw the datapad down on the bed in disgust. He couldn’t concentrate. He felt like he was suspended between two anxieties: that Ren wouldn’t fall into the trap he’d set, and that he would, and Hux would have to put his life on the line to face him again.

 

It was that last thought, the potential that tomorrow or the day after might be his last day alive, that spurred him to action. He picked up his datapad again, pulled on his boots, and marched out of his bunk and across the hall to the one Phasma had chosen. 

 

It was now or never. He couldn’t keep putting it off. What could he possibly be afraid of? This wasn’t a battle.

 

He knocked on her door. He realized he was holding his breath and let it all out in a rush just before she opened it.

 

“Armitage,” she said with a smile. “Are you feeling alright?”

 

“Better,” he said, shifting from foot to foot. “Much as it pains me to admit, sleep was probably a good idea. May I… May I come in?”

 

“Of course.” She stepped back into the room, and he followed her. “Did you need something?”

 

“I… well,” he stopped and cleared his throat, looking down at his datapad as he flipped through his files until he found the right one. “I wanted to propose, or, I suppose ask, um…” Frustrated at his own inability to get his words out, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he made himself look her in the eye. “Facing Ren will be a dangerous mission. We should be prepared for the possibility that one or the other of us will need to continue in the First Order without the other.”

 

“Armitage,” she began, but he shook his head.

 

“Please, let me… I know it isn’t the eventuality that either of us want, but it might… I, um, I filled out the appropriate form. I’ve signed it, and if you want to, as well, I can submit it. Just in case.” He flipped his datapad around and handed it to her so that she could read it.

 

“Form 113.6B,” she read aloud, “Request for Mutual Adoption as Next of Kin.” She looked up, surprised. 

 

Hux stood up straight, clasping his hands tight behind his back. “My father had some accumulated property, and part of it came to me when he died. I never really checked how much came to me and how much went to my step-mother, I didn’t really care, my provisions from the First Order have always met my needs adequately, but there is something. And I think he had some land on a planet somewhere, as well, I didn’t investigate. If I don’t have any next of kin, it all just goes to the First Order anyway, so…” He trailed off, painfully aware that he was babbling.

 

Phasma looked up at him, half amused and half bewildered. “You know if we fail to kill Ren, it’ll all go to the First Order anyway. It isn’t like he’ll let me live and not you if he knows what we’ve done.”

 

“I know, it’s just…” He wasn’t quite sure how to explain how he had felt when he’d filled out the form. It was an odd, nebulous feeling that didn’t seem to have any practical bearing on his life or his aims, but it was almost overwhelming in its intensity. “Just in case, just in case I die… I won’t have just vanished back into the Order. I won’t be remembered as… alone.”

 

It sounded so completely, utterly stupid when he said it out loud. He was the General of the Armies for the entire First Order, there was no way for him to vanish even if he did die. But Phasma didn’t point out how nonsensical his explanation was. She just nodded as if she understood, then turned her eyes to the datapad. She read the entire form, then pressed her left forefinger to the screen and waited as it took her fingerprint. His heart leaped into his throat when she did so, and he shook his head at himself. Whether or not she signed the form shouldn’t mean this much. It didn’t make sense. 

 

She passed the datapad back to him, and he looked down at their two fingerprints printed into the form beside their names and ranks, “General Armitage Hux” and “Captain Phasma, formerly FN-0942.”

 

“It says that it’s mutual,” Phasma said. “I don’t have anything to leave anyone. I don’t possess anything, it all belongs to the First Order.”

 

“That doesn’t matter to me,” he answered.

 

“Then,” she hesitated, and he looked back up at her. “If I might make a request?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“If I die and you continue in the First Order… The standard procedure upon a Stormtrooper’s death is cremation and jettison into space.” He nodded, and she took a fortifying breath before saying, “I’d like to be placed on a planet, if it’s convenient. Somewhere that things are growing.”

 

He started to nod again, then, because it seemed to small of a gesture, he saluted instead. She laughed. “Understood, Phasma. If the occasion should arise, I’ll make sure it’s done. I’ll do it.”

 

“Thank you, Armitage,” she said. “Is there… Is there anything that you want?”

 

He considered the question. “I haven’t felt at home on a planet since I left Arkanis,” he finally answered. “Space is suitable for me.”

 

“Understood,” Phasma echoed him, and he thought, _She’s telling the truth. I am understood_. 

 

“Good,” he said, turning back toward the door. “Thank you. I… Good night, Phasma.”

 

She stepped toward him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Stay?” she asked in a quiet voice.

 

He hadn’t even realized that there was anything he needed, but the relief he felt at the question made his spine slump. He nodded and toed off his boots. 

 

They had done this several times in the weeks and months after what had happened aboard the Supremacy, after one or the other of them or both had spent several nights unable to sleep. They’d both been so shaken by the fact that they’d almost lost each other that there were times when the only way they could relax was by lying back-to-back, listening to each other’s breathing.

 

Phasma took the half of the bed facing the door, and he lay down behind her, pressing his back and shoulders against hers. Despite the preposterous amount of time he’d already spent unconscious, he was asleep almost immediately. 

 

***

 

Hux was shocked awake by the alarm on his datapad blaring. He scrambled out of the bed and snatched it up, his heart pounding as he confirmed what had happened. The Supreme Leader had taken a shuttle, ordering the tracking system removed, and had told no one where he intended to go. 

 

Ren had taken the bait. 


	4. Mustafar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's never written action before! It's me. (And boy, if I thought it was hard keeping track of characters' positions in space when they were just having intense conversations, it's way harder when there's like five of them in a room running around trying to hit each other with things.) I hope it turned out okay!

Rose sat in her perch in the ruined stronghold, staring nervously at the feeds from her cameras. She was hidden behind a half-crumbled wall, but if she peeked over the top of it she could see all the way down into the cavernous main chamber, one floor above the ground level and the fortress’s entrance. 

 

She couldn’t see any of the others, though. They were posted in different places in the hallways and antechambers surrounding the main space, all their stations having been carefully chosen. Rey, Finn, and the two First Order officers were on the first floor, level with the central chamber, Poe and Chewbacca ready to shoot down from the second floor, and Rose was here, at the top, surrounded by screens showing the views from the cameras she’d set up around the perimeter.  

 

Rose fiddled with her earpiece, adjusted her screens, shifted and glanced at the wall to make sure she was completely covered.

 

“All right, Rose?” Rey’s voice came over the comm, sounding totally level. Rose had no idea how she could stay so calm and confident in a situation like this, but it helped her feel better.

 

“Everything’s good,” Rose answered. "No sign yet of… Wait.” Her heart stuttered and she felt a prickle of fear across her skin. The sensor attached to her main camera, at the front of the stronghold, blinked into life, registering an incoming ship and logging its engine signature. A moment later, the camera picked it up, too, an ominous black blade of a ship, settling down on the planet’s uneven surface with what felt like agonizing slowness.

 

“He’s here,” Rose said shortly. “He’s just landed.”

 

The ship was larger than the one Hux and Phasma had arrived in, and could probably have comfortably housed at least twenty people. It even had escape pods sprouting from its sides liek mushrooms. Rose had a shaky moment of panic that Ren hadn’t come alone after all.

 

But when the hatch lowered, only Ren emerged, cloaked and helmeted, blending in with the shadows and ash and char of Mustafar all around him. 

 

“He’s off his ship,” Rose said over the comm. “I have eyes on him.”

 

Ren stared up at the fortress in front of him. The positioning of her camera made it seem like he was looking directly at Rose, which made her skin crawl. 

 

Ren moved quickly toward the entrance to the fortress, gripping his lightsaber in his hand, cutting a straight and decisive path through the rubble.

 

“What is he doing?” Captain Phasma’s voice came over the comm.

 

“He’s… He’s going around the fortress. He’s making a circuit of it. It’ll only take a few minutes, everyone get ready.” Rose reached up and thumbed a button on her earpiece, switching over to a private channel with Rey. “He’s heading straight for the front door. You’ve got to go quick.”

 

“I’m already moving,” Rey answered.

 

“Stay safe,” Rose said.

 

“You too.”

 

***

 

Rey moved through the shadows of the ruined hallways, keeping away from the main chamber and out of sight, following the route she’d picked out when they’d been scouting out the building for hiding places and ambush locations. There was a hole ahead where the floor of the hall had caved in, and she dropped through it and landed on the first floor. 

 

Rounding a corner, she found herself looking at the wide staircase leading up to the main chamber. She turned away from it and ducked into a side room. She crossed the room and took up her position, facing the entrance she’d come in through and with her back to the room’s second door. It led out into a narrow service hallway that wound through the fortress and eventually came back to the entrance hall. She knew she might need an escape route. 

 

She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin, telling herself that the only things she was allowed to feel were ferocity and fearlessness. She took a deep breath and reached into her mind, where she had buried her connection to Ren, and pulled the connection open again.

 

***

 

Hux stood at attention, resisting the urge to draw his blaster and keep it trained on the doorway into the central chamber. He would wait until he had eyes on Ren; he didn’t want to risk hitting anyone with friendly fire.

 

His earpiece made a small chime to indicate that someone had opened a private channel with him. He reached up and pressed a button to accept it. 

 

“The scavenger girl is out of position,” Phasma said with no preamble.

 

Hux tensed. “How do you know?” he asked in a low voice.

 

“I happen to also be out of position,” Phasma answered dryly. “I’ve been on edge since they suggested we set this ambush inside. We all have our own hiding places and can’t see each other. It’s the perfect time for the Resistance to show their hand.”

 

“Give me a moment,” Hux said, and closed his eyes, though it made him feel even more on edge. He reached out, looking for a feeling like banked coals, a steady smoldering occasionally leaping into fierce tongues of flame, the feeling he’d come to associate with the scavenger girl’s mind. It was more difficult to place it in the unfamiliar space than on the ship, but he was able to find her on the first floor of the building, near the entrance of the fortress. 

 

He widened the Force out like a net being thrown into the water, trying to figure out what she was doing there, and ran straight into a roiling presence that he recognized with such mingled fear and anger that it threw him straight back into himself. He staggered on his feet and hissed into the comm, “She’s with Ren now. Do you know where I am?”

 

“I’ve got eyes on you, Armitage.”

 

“Then follow me. We have to figure out what the fuck is going on.”

 

He reached again for the scavenger girl’s position and began to run toward it, trusting that Phasma would be right behind him. A few seconds later, he heard her footsteps behind him. 

 

It was only because he was already trying to navigate with the Force that he felt someone else’s use of the Force rippling toward him. He didn’t take the time to try to figure out who it was or what they were doing; he simply reacted, striking the tendril of the Force away from himself with as much power as he could spare. It made a spike of pain lance through his skull, but he ignored it. 

 

The other Force user recoiled from him in shock, and he realized who it had to be. FN-2187 had been keeping watch on them, making sure they didn’t try anything. Now he heard another set of footsteps, and felt FN-2187 trying to reach out again with the Force, with more strength this time.

 

Desperately, Hux lashed out with more speed than control and swept FN-2187’s legs out from under him. This time, the pain in his head was strong enough to send white spots skittering across his vision, but he kept his feet, Phasma right on his heels. 

 

***

 

“Hux and Phasma have broken position!” Rose heard Finn over the comm. “Rey, they’re heading toward you! I’m after them!”

 

“Finn, do you need…” Poe started, but a sudden shout from Finn cut him off and made Rose’s heart leap in her chest.

 

“What the…? They’re using the Force!” Finn yelled, and Rose drew the blaster at her side, jumping to her feet. There was nothing she could do from up here, she had to do something to help them…

 

One of her sensors blared an alert. She glanced toward her screens, expecting to see something showing up on the camera she’d placed at the front of the stronghold. 

 

Instead, the sensor she’d set up on the roof was going off. Her eyes widened. Then she started shouting. 

 

“Something just broke the atmosphere! There’s another ship incoming! It’s heading straight for our location!”

 

***

 

Rey felt his presence before he walked through the door. She almost laughed when she saw that he was still wearing his mask. He had thrown the connection between them wide as soon as she’d let him. What did he think he was hiding from her by covering his face?

 

“Rey,” he said, voice fizzing through the vocoder. His voice was emotionless, but she could feel the chaotic roil of his thoughts just beyond her own mind, a sandstorm on the horizon. 

 

“Ren,” she answered. 

 

He cocked his head. “Not Ben this time?” he asked, tone mocking. 

 

“That’s entirely up to you.”

 

“How many more chances will you give me, I wonder? How many more times will you try to talk instead of striking me down?”

 

“This is the last.” She stared directly into the glassy black eyes of his mask and held the forefront of her mind steady and still, holding his attention. She sent a tiny tendril of her consciousness inching along the edge of the connection between them, venturing softly, silently, gently into the storm. “On the _Supremacy_ , it was because I truly believed I could reach you.”

 

“And now?”

 

“You killed one of the first people to convince me that I could be something more than what I was,” she answered, letting a tiny bit of her own genuine grief spill into her voice. “But he died trying to convince you of the same thing. That you were more than this. That is why I’m here now. For his sake.”

 

She felt him recoil at the mention of Han Solo, although his body remained completely still. Then, an instant later, the storm of his mind was back, battering against her own, an army that could only see the gates in front of it and not the what was creeping around behind. Rey made a show of throwing off his mental assault, and all the while, the tendril she had sent out drove further into his mind. 

 

“This is your last chance, too, you know,” he said, almost conversationally.

 

“To turn to the Dark Side, you mean?”

 

“Why not?” he asked, a hint of frustration finally appearing in his voice. “Why not take what you can? Why not rule? Why not take your place where you belong?”

 

“I don’t want to rule. I know what it would turn me into. Besides, I’m already where I belong. You know it’s where you belong, too.”

 

As she spoke, she summoned up all the warmth she’d felt in the past few months, the contentment of sharing her life with Finn and Rose and Poe, of learning from Leia and Chewie, of belonging. She didn’t push the feeling toward him; instead, she let it suffuse her mind, brightening every part of her that he could see.

 

He wavered. 

 

Noise and voices suddenly erupted in her earpiece, and she blocked them out without even thinking about it. She couldn’t let herself focus on whatever was happening out there. If she let her guard down, he’d know, and it would go very badly for her. 

 

She knew he’d made up his mind the second before he spoke. By the time he’d managed to say, decisively, “You’re wrong,” she’d called her lightsaber from where she’d tucked it into her belt, along her spine. It leaped into her hand, and she had it ignited and leveled at him before he could fully draw his.

 

“Where did you get that?” he asked, and she took advantage of his shock and frustration to take that last little step into his mind. 

 

“I’m a scavenger,” she said with a wild grin as she snatched as many scattered pieces of information as she could. His mind exploded in anger as he realized what she was doing, and she was thrown back into her own head, but with a few additions. 

 

There was a sense of betrayal, something that had nothing to do with her. In a split second, the bits of his thoughts that she’d brought with her resolved themselves into things she could understand, _no response_ , _no word_ , _lines all closed_ , _they’ve turned on me_ , _have to expect an attack_ , _why, why, why would they do this…_

 

Did he know that Hux and Phasma were working with the Resistance? No, that couldn’t be what he’d meant, she realized almost immediately. After all, Ren was as shocked as she was when Hux and Phasma burst through the door of the room, Finn hot on their heels.

 

***

 

Hux skidded to a stop, taking in the scene in front of him. The scavenger girl was holding a blue lightsaber in her hand, pointed at Ren, but her attention was on him, eyes wide in surprise. Ren’s damned idiot mask swiveled to face him, and in the next moment, Ren was drawing his own saber. 

 

_Go to hell_ , Hux thought, and, taking advantage of the element of surprise, stretched out one arm, palm out toward Ren, reached out with the Force, and yanked the lightsaber out of Ren’s hand.

 

The weapon sped through the air toward his hand. It didn’t reach him. A moment later, he realized with horror just how completely outgunned he was in this particular situation.

 

***

 

_Oh, he can use the Force_ , Rey thought. _That’s a complication I didn’t need._

 

Ren’s mind boiled over with rage, and Rey quickly withdrew along the connection between them to avoid being affected by it. Ren lashed out with the Force and pulled the lightsaber back into his hand with such violence that it dragged Hux forward off his feet and slammed him into the floor hard enough to make Rey wince. 

 

Rey heard Phasma shout, “Armitage!” and saw her leap over Hux to stand in front of him, drawing her voltage baton from her belt. Behind the First Order officers, Finn was barreling through the door, lightsaber already drawn. That was all that Rey had time to register before Ren had whirled on her, bringing his blade down toward the top of her head.

 

She knocked the blade away with her own. Ren’s anger was making him sloppy, but his much longer reach would be dangerous. She bounded backward, staying up on the balls of her feet.

 

Before Ren could follow her, Phasma had swung the baton at him, and he was forced to bring his saber around and parry the blow. 

 

“Get back!” Rey shouted to her, but it was too late. Ren jerked his hand as if he was swatting at a fly, and Phasma flew across the room, slamming into the far wall head-first and dropping to the ground, unmoving.

 

In the next moment, Finn was there beside Rey, blue and green light against red. Ren whirled on them, taking a step forward, but Rey grinned, baring her teeth. Ren might have raw strength and years of experience using the Force, but Rey had a friend. She reached out and found Finn’s mind already there to meet her. They wrapped around each other, interlinking the way their fingers did when they held hands, and combined they threw their power out and slammed it into Ren, shoving him backwards, his boots sliding across the stone floor as he fought to keep his balance. 

 

There followed an instant of stalemate, of held breath, Rey and Finn facing down Ren, waiting for his counterattack. A few feet away, Hux forced himself up onto his knees, blood running from his nose, and turned his head toward where Phasma lay slumped against the wall, only slowly and clumsily starting to stir. 

 

Rey felt Ren’s next move just before it was made. “Look out, Finn!” she shouted, extinguishing her saber and vaulting away, hitting the ground painfully and rolling back to her feet just as Ren brought the ceiling down where she’d been standing. Cracks spiderwebbed out from the jagged hole that had been left, and in the chaos, Ren strode for the door of the room.

 

Finn was slightly slower to react, and one of the larger pieces of rubble hit him on the shoulder as he leaped out of the way. He shouted and she felt the echo of his pain as she ran to his side. He could barely lift his arm, struggling against the grinding in his shoulder joint. 

 

“Go!” he said through gritted teeth, pushing against her mind with the Force, and she nodded, changing direction to run after Ren. If she didn’t stop him before he reached his ship, they’d be even worse off than when they’d started. 

 

***

 

Hux forced his mind to focus through the pain lancing through his head. Something had happened to Phasma, he had to find her, he had to get to her…

 

The impact of part of the ceiling hitting the floor was enough to knock him onto his side and scatter his thoughts again. He struggled back to his hands and knees, glanced across the room, and saw her. 

 

Phasma was against the wall, trying to lift herself off the ground but clearly injured. And all around her, extending across the ceiling and running down the wall, were cracks in the stone. It was all about to cave in on her. 

 

“No,” he said, his voice cracking, and then he was on his feet, his vision blurring and graying out and his feet seeming to catch on every irregularity in the floor. He wasn’t going to make it, he wasn’t going to be quick enough.

 

It seemed like it took him a small eternity to reach her side. He grabbed her shoulders and tried to pull her, but immediately realized that wasn’t going to work. She had all her armor on, and his limbs were already wobbling.

 

The sound of shifting, fracturing rock came from above him. There was only one option.

 

He made himself stand back up, threw his arms up over his head, turned his palms toward the ceiling, and shouted, “ _Stop!_ ”

 

***

 

Rey was almost to the door when the sound of more of the ceiling collapsing made her pause and look back, her heart leaping into her throat as she scanned the room for Finn. He was on his feet, moving toward the other door, almost safely out of the room. He wasn’t in danger. 

 

But someone was. Phasma was still sprawled out on the floor, and Hux was standing over her, his hands up in the air. A foot above his palms, a massive fall of rock had stopped, hanging in the air and raining dust down onto the floor. 

 

Blood was pouring out of Hux’s nose, trickling in rivulets out of his ears and down his neck, flecking his lips. His legs were shaking, and when he turned his head toward Rey, she could see that his eyes were wide and pained and terrified.

 

_He stopped it, but he can’t move it_ , she realized. _They’re both going to be crushed_. 

 

She took a step toward them and sent the Force out in a wide net under the rock, making sure she had every piece under control. A flick of her head sent the rock flying across the room. With the pressure gone, Hux dropped his hands and swayed. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell heavily to the floor. 

 

She’d only lost a few seconds. She could still catch up to Ren. She could still put an end to this. But she could tell, even without sensing it through the Force, that the rest of the ceiling wouldn’t hold for long.

 

Finn had stopped in the other doorway, the hallway behind him seeming unaffected by the disturbance in the room. _Help me with this_ , she thought at him, and between the two of them, they managed to float the two bodies, one unconscious and one semi-conscious, out of the room and set them carefully back down on the floor beyond the doorway. 

 

No sooner had they done that than a tremendous _BOOM_ seemed to echo all throughout the stronghold, knocking Rey and Finn off their feet and making the very foundations of the building seem to tremble. The room they had just left collapsed completely, a wall of rock at their backs. “What the hell was that?” Rey shouted, trying to catch her breath, but the ringing in her ears was so intense that she couldn’t even hear herself, let alone any answer Finn might have been able to give.

 

***

 

Rose started running as soon as she saw the incoming ship on her sensors. She caught up to Poe and Chewbacca halfway down the spiraling staircase. 

 

“What other ship?” Poe shouted at her. 

 

“I don’t know!” she yelled back. “Ren’s backup?”

 

They tore across the central chamber and took the stairs to the entrance hall two at a time. They skidded out into the smokey air of Mustafar just in time to see a tiny black speck in the sky begin to resolve itself into a small, needle-shaped craft rocketing straight down toward them. 

 

“It’s not coming in for a landing!” Poe said. “It’s going to fire! We have to get back inside and take cover!”

 

“I need my sensor!” Rose answered, and took off toward where she’d stashed her entrance camera, hurdling piles of rocks as she went. 

 

“What?!” Poe asked, as he and Chewbacca ran after her. 

 

“It’s got Ren’s engine signature logged, and this ship’s too!” she called over her shoulder. “I need it if we’re going to track them!”

 

Above them, the ship was pulling up, close enough now that it’s engine noise made an audible, deep hum. It had held its fire so far, although they must be visible to the pilot if the ship had any kind of surveillance equipment at all. 

 

She vaulted into the little sheltered space between two jagged bits of rubble where she’d stashed the camera and its attached sensor. She hauled the whole apparatus up, cradling it in her arms as she turned back to the others. 

 

Chewbacca was staring up at the ship, his bowcaster out and aimed as if he was going to try to shoot it down, but as she watched, he swung his head toward the entrance to the fortress. He must have heard something too faint for Poe and Rose to catch. 

 

A moment later, Rose caught her breath at the sight of Ren stalking out of the fortress, his lightsaber in his hand. She was briefly terrified for Rey and Finn, wondering if he’d hurt them, before he swung his head in their direction. 

 

_Oh_ , she had time to think, _he’s going to kill us_ , before Ren snapped his attention up toward the needle-shaped ship at the same time that Chewbacca gave a multi-toned howl that she recognized as referring to shipboard weapons. 

 

Rose, Poe, and Chewbacca threw themselves to the ground, and Rose was painfully aware of how little cover the rocks gave them. The sound of the ship’s guns firing was horribly loud in full atmosphere, and any second she expected to be hit with something. 

 

She wasn’t. From between her arms, which she’d thrown up over her head, she saw Ren crouched with his hand out toward the sky, six enormous bolts of white light suspended in the air between him and the ship. Ren gave a shout of effort and the ship, seeming to know what was coming, veered to the left in time to avoid its own weapons fire as the bolts were thrown back the way they’d come. The ship was already swooping around for another attack.

 

_It’s not Ren’s backup_ , Rose thought. The thought was not comforting. Rose and the others were still at risk of becoming collateral damage. She had dropped her blaster; she reached for it and had just gotten her fingertips on it when a crashing _BOOM_ echoed out of the sky, so loud that Rose thought the planet might be blowing up. 

 

When Rose’s brain was finally able to interpret sights and sounds again, she found that she’d been thrown onto her back. She was still too stunned to be able to move. Some kind of shockwave had scattered the smaller rocks around them, and had even split some of the bigger ones. And what she saw in the sky didn’t make any sense. 

 

Where there had been one needle-shaped ship, there were now two: the original black one and a new silver-gray one. The gray ship was speeding on a collision course toward the black one, which was firing its engines on full power, trying to turn and get out of the way. 

 

With shock, Rose realized what must have happened: the sound had been the sonic boom of the gray ship exiting hyperspace _inside_ Mustafar’s atmosphere. There was a reason pilots only exited hyperspace in vacuum: a planet’s atmosphere was full of hazards and complications that didn’t follow stable, calculable orbits. Even the fastest ship’s computers couldn’t plan an atmospheric exit safely. Not to mention the extreme strain it would put on the ship’s structure and engines. The gray ship had been able to catch the black one by surprise, but…

 

“That pilot is out of their mind,” Rose whispered, dazedly. 

 

Rose was vaguely aware of the sound of Kylo Ren’s ship throttling up its engines and blasting off fast enough to shake the ground, like the aftershock of an earthquake. The black ship sent out a last volley of fire at the planet’s surface before its turn was completed, then shot off toward open space, the gray ship in hot pursuit.

 

The black ship’s last, wild attack hit the ground too close to them, sending chunks of stone and lava rock arcing up into the air. Rose watched the pieces raining down, several of them heading straight for her, and desperately tried to move, to roll out of the way, but she was still too stunned to do more than rock her body from side to side. 

 

A blur of brown fur swept by across her vision. Wookiees were stronger and hardier than humans, and Chewbacca was already on his feet, throwing himself over the top of Rose and Poe. She heard his growls of pain as the rocks hit his back, but he held himself steady above them. 

 

A few seconds later, the rocks stopped falling, and the three of them struggled to catch their breath in the eerily sudden silence.

 

The comm in Rose’s ear crackled to life. “Are you guys okay?” came Finn’s voice. “Also, what just happened?”

 

***

 

Luckily, it didn’t take Rose, Poe, and Chewie that long to find the other way in to the service hallway. Finn, who was gritting his teeth and trying to ignore the alternating stabbing and throbbing feelings in his shoulder, noticed that Chewie was also tense with pain. Despite this, he didn’t hesitate to hoist the still-unconscious Hux into his enormous arms. 

 

Rey got herself under Phasma’s arm and helped her to her feet. It looked a little ridiculous, what with Phasma being a foot taller than Rey and fully armored, but Rey was using the Force to keep Phasma upright. 

 

“My helmet,” Phasma murmured, words slurring slightly. “Can’t see.” When Finn looked closer, he saw that the metal of her faceplate had crumpled from the impact with the wall, and the transparent plastic covering her eyes was cracked.

 

“Ren?” Finn asked, wincing as he stood up. 

 

Poe shook his head. “Escaped,” he said tightly. 

 

They made their way to the Falcon in silence, each of them trying to sort through the consequences of their failed mission and the significance of the two strange ships. Finally, they were back aboard. Chewie set Hux gently down on the floor of the cargo bay and went with Rey toward the cockpit. A moment later, they were taking off. 

 

Phasma sat slumped in the middle of the floor, shaking her head back and forth in big sweeps. “Damn thing,” she said, pulling clumsily at her helmet, finally getting it off and tossing it aimlessly to the side. Her eyes were unfocused and her pupils were huge, even in the harsh overhead lights. 

 

“What happ…” She cut herself off as her eyes fell on Hux. A moment later, she was scrambling across the floor, tilting dizzily to one side. 

 

Finn watched in complete shock as Phasma collapsed by Hux’s side and pulled him into her arms, pressing her forehead against his and rocking slightly, forward and back. She was saying something under her breath, and when Finn stepped closer he could make out, “No, please, please, please, please, please, please…”

 

“He’s still alive,” Finn said, slightly awkwardly. “We’re heading back to the transport now.”

 

Phasma jerked her head up to look at him. Hux’s blood was streaked across the burned side of her face, and her eyes were wet. He felt disoriented, like he’d stepped into some parallel universe. In his world, Captain Phasma didn’t cry.

 

She blinked a few times, then her eyes narrowed. “You, you lied to us. You all lied to us.”

 

“Well, to be fair,” Finn said, inclining his head toward Hux, “you lied to us, too.”

 

Phasma opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment, the Falcon shook as it touched down in the transport’s hangar, and the hatch gave a pneumatic hiss and started to descend. 

 

“We need to get him to the medbay,” Finn said. 

 

Phasma’s eyes jumped nervously between him and Poe and Rose, then skittered in the direction of Rey and Chewie as they came back from the cockpit. “How can I trust you?” she asked, voice hard. 

 

Finn considered stating what Phasma should have known was obvious: Hux, with his pale, bloody face and his shallow breaths, appeared to be in the process of dying. There was nothing they could do with a med droid that they couldn’t do by just sitting and waiting. She didn’t have a choice but to trust them. 

 

He didn’t say that, though. Through all the dangerous missions, all the seemingly impossible orders, all the injuries he’d seen her take, Phasma had never looked like this: lost and afraid. So, instead, he crouched down, held her eyes, and said, “That’s up to you. But you have to get him to the medbay. He’s still alive, so he still needs your help.”

 

Phasma glanced down at Hux and nodded. Chewie stepped forward, reaching out to pick Hux up again. 

 

“No!” Phasma shouted, tightening her grip. “I have him!”

 

Finn caught Chewie’s eye. “I’ll take care of it,” he said softly. 

 

He was nearly exhausted, but he had just enough strength left to reach out and build the Force up around Phasma like a brace, helping her stumble to her feet, off the Falcon, and into the transport in the direction of the medbay, Hux still cradled in her arms.


	5. Turning Points

The hyperspace tracking machinery that Rose had assembled through months of trial and error grew out of the transport’s navigation systems like a weird metal parasite. She ran all the way from the Falcon to the cockpit so she could plug her sensor into it, gasping to get her breath back as the tracking system booted up. 

 

Rey, Poe, and Leia came in behind her, having sent Finn and Chewbacca to the medbay. “Did you get the engine signatures?” Rey asked her.

 

“I did for Ren’s ship and the attack ship,” Rose answered. “I only got a partial signature for the rescue ship, but it might still be enough to follow. But if we follow one, the trail will be too cold to go back and follow a different one later. We have to decide who to track now.”

 

Rose almost wanted to suggest they follow the attack ship, in hopes that they might find a previously unknown ally who could help them against Ren. But she knew, in the end, that it was a straightforward decision.

 

“We should go after Ren,” Rey said, looking to Leia for approval. “He’s still our target.”

 

Leia nodded. “I agree. But don’t bring us out too close. He might be waiting for us. We should make the final approach under thrusters.”

 

Rose nodded and started feeding in the information her tracking system would need to make the jump. 

 

“Is the connection still open?” Poe asked Rey. “Can you use it to get an idea of what we might be looking at when we come out of the jump?”

 

Rey shook her head. “He’s closed it on his end. I’ve closed my end, too. I don’t want to leave any opening for him to attack.”

 

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Leia said, staring straight ahead as the ship juddered and lurched into hyperspace. 

 

***

 

Finn stood watching Phasma, trying to reconcile her with the person he’d spent so much of his life afraid of. She was leaning against the partition separating the emergency section from the rest of the medbay, her hands pressed flat against the glass. Around her head, like a dull gray crown, was a thin band of metal and machinery that was treating and monitoring her concussion. She didn’t even seem to notice it. She didn’t take her eyes away from the cot where Hux lay, a flurry of medical droids whirring around him, beeping and blinking lights at each other.

 

“Don’t you dare, Armitage,” she murmured, as she’d been doing intermittently for the past few minutes. “Don’t you dare, don’t you dare.”

 

He had thought he knew her. He had thought he knew who she was, what she was, what she stood for. He knew nothing about this version of her. 

 

One of the medical droids, vaguely humanoid at the top but mounted on small, clicking wheels, detached itself from the buzz of activity in the emergency section and made its way through the door into the outer medbay. Phasma ran to it but pulled herself up short, rocking onto her heels as if she wanted to turn and run from it, her hands balled tightly into fists. 

 

“Bleeding in the brain has been arrested,” the droid said in a flat, artificially pleasant voice. “Prognosis is positive and full recovery expected. However, unconsciousness will be induced for the next several hours to ensure repair of cerebral tissue.”

 

“Of course,” Phasma said quietly. “Thank you, thank you.”

 

The droid clearly hadn’t been programmed with emotional responses, so it didn’t respond to her thanks, just turned and trundled back into the emergency section. Phasma went back to the glass, staring through it as if she’d never moved.

 

Finn felt something almost like hysteria, and ducked out of the medbay to the hallway beyond. He shifted the brace on his shoulder with a wince. His treatment had been simple enough, resetting of the dislocated joint and an injection to stimulate muscle repair, but he had to keep the motion of his arm limited for the next twelve hours. He tried to find a comfortable way to lean against the wall and wondered when the droids would let Phasma in to the emergency section. 

 

She had been the Captain of the FN Stormtroopers since before he’d been activated for combat. He’d been ten years old, still clinging to the hope that this had all been a mistake and he’d be allowed to go home soon, when the recruits had been told that one of their own had been promoted to Lieutenant. It hadn’t made much of an impression at the time, and by the time he’d been put in armor and sent out on missions she had become a fact of life, just another part of his horrible reality. 

 

She’d seemed like a monolith, an immovable, implacable creature that was always watching them, seeing everything, always ready to hand down punishment. In his mind, she was the entirety of the First Order: faceless, cruel, and unfeeling. If she’d ever been human, that had been crushed out of her long ago. When he’d first thought of escaping the Order, she was part of his motivation. If he stayed, he’d become just like her. 

 

And now, it seemed, there had been a human being under that armor all along. She was a person who had as much to lose as Finn did. She had _someone_ to lose. 

 

It made everything he knew about her, everything he’d seen her do, seem completely incomprehensible to him. If she was as human as he was, why hadn’t she left? She was the most intimidating, terrifying person he had ever met; even knowing the strength of the First Order, he couldn’t imagine anyone being able to stop her. What could have kept her in that armor, following those terrible orders?

 

_I’ve been protecting my family, every family, for 24 years_. She believed it. It wasn’t a robotic, insincere justification. She actually believed it. 

 

Once, on a mission to what had appeared to be a barren, lifeless desert world, he’d come over a ridge to see that what he’d thought was an empty cliff face in the distance had actually housed a bustling village built into the vertical rock, sheltered by the lip of the cliff and out of sight at all but a few angles. He’d stared at it in amazement. He felt a bit of the same amazement now. 

 

He shook his head. The realization made him uncomfortable, but he wasn’t sure what it actually changed. She would still be his enemy at the end of this.

 

***

 

When the medical droids judged that the danger was mostly over, and that visitors could enter the emergency section of the medbay, they lit up a green bulb over the door and retreated to their positions along the wall, shutting down until they were needed again. 

 

Phasma was through the door in seconds, but then found herself unsure of what she should do. A little sheepishly, she went back through the door into the main medbay, picked up one of the chairs lining the wall, and brought it back with her, setting it down beside the cot. 

 

She sat in the chair and stared at Armitage. The blood had been cleaned off his face, thankfully, but he was still so pale that his skin almost seemed grayish. Some of the blood vessels in his eyelids had burst and left him with two black eyes, and he was so still that she had to rest her fingertips against his chest for a moment, just to reassure herself that it was rising and falling. 

 

She touched her hand to his forehead, a half-remembered gesture like she was checking for a fever, then felt silly and used that hand to push his hair back away from his face, as if that was what she’d meant to do all along. 

 

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” she said softly, “but you look like hell.” It was stupid, it wasn’t as if he could hear her, but she felt she had to say something. Almost without her realizing it, her hand kept moving across his hair, smoothing it over and over again. “You saved my life. Don’t think I’m not grateful. But you might show yourself a little more consideration. If only as a kindness to me.” 

 

She put her other hand on top of his, curling her fingers around his palm. “I don’t know what happened to you,” she told him. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to protect you, this time. You remember, I’m sure you remember, what it was like before we were allies. I’m sure you remember what it was like to be alone. So just…” She sighed and leaned closer to him, whispered next to his ear, “Just don’t go. We can figure out what to do if you just come back.”

 

She wasn’t sure how long she sat beside him, watching him closely. Her mind seemed to move like a tide, filling up with fear and anger and jittery, half-formed analyses of the disaster on Mustafar, then slowly emptying out until it was completely still. Then thoughts would start trickling back in and the whole cycle would begin again. 

 

Eventually, she was roused by the sound of voices and movement coming from outside the medbay. She blinked and sat up, wondering how long she had been there. Her shoulders ached from her hunched-over position. 

 

She stood up and stretched, patted Armitage’s hand gently. “I’ll be back,” she told him, and went in search of whatever was going on. 

 

She found the members of the Resistance clustered together in one of the hallways between the medbay and the canteen, looking serious. 

 

“What’s going on?” she asked, keeping her voice steady and her face expressionless. FN-2187 looked at her intently, as if he was trying to puzzle her out, but she just looked back blandly. 

 

“We tracked Ren’s ship,” Rey answered. “We’re approaching it now.”

 

Phasma hadn’t even noticed the jump to hyperspace. She nodded, because she wasn’t entirely sure what other response was expected. 

 

“We’re about to board,” FN-2187 said. “The ship’s sustained damage, like it was attacked, but we don’t know whether that happened on Mustafar or after. The engines aren’t active, but life support’s on. It could be a trap, so we’re going armed.”

 

“General Hux said, at the start of this, that the two of you were the only First Order soldiers involved in your plot,” General Organa cut in. “Were you lying? Do you know who was piloting the other ships?”

 

“Were they First Order ships?” Phasma asked, and mentally chastised herself. She hadn’t been paying close enough attention, and this was strategically important.

 

General Organa pulled a datapad from her pocket and passed it to Phasma. “Maybe you could tell us.”

 

Phasma looked down at the screen, where a three-dimensional model of a ship was displayed. She narrowed her eyes, considering it. “Ar—That is, General Hux is the one who knows ships. I’m not an expert. But I’ve seen ships like this before. I think it is a First Order ship, although I don’t think there are many of this model around. There were two of this type?”

 

General Organa nodded. “One attacking Ren, and one rescuing him.”

 

Phasma shook her head and handed the datapad back to General Organa. “I have no idea who they are. We haven’t been in contact with them.”

 

“Is it possible that General Hux didn’t reveal all the details of his plan to you?”

 

“Absolutely not,” Phasma snapped. She took a breath to calm herself.

 

“Fair enough,” General Organa said. “Thank you for your input.”

 

“Who is boarding Ren’s ship?” Phasma asked.

 

“Me, Rey, and Poe,” FN-2187 said. “Do you want in?”

 

Rey, Poe, and Rose shot him concerned looks that they probably thought were subtle. General Organa looked unperturbed. Chewbacca remained inscrutable to Phasma. 

 

She only had to think about it for a moment. She was still in most of her armor, minus her second ruined helmet in six months, and had her blaster, even if her voltage baton had been left behind on Mustafar. She was so restless that it was making her nauseous, and there was an anger burning under her skin that needed an outlet before it started affecting her thinking. “Yes. I’m ready to go immediately.”

 

“Are you sure?” Rey asked, looking surprised. “Don’t you want to stay here, for…?”

 

“The mission was to kill Ren. It’s not over yet.” 

 

“You’re injured,” Rey said.

 

So is FN… So is _Finn_. There’s still work to be done.” Phasma turned back to General Organa. “But I would appreciate it if you would do something for me, General.”

 

“What’s that?” General Organa asked.

 

Phasma reached for a compartment at her belt and pulled out her field water flask. From the outside of the flask, she popped a small metal disc, which unfolded with a flick of her wrist into a tiny cup. She held it out to General Organa. 

 

“Would you put this somewhere in the medbay? Somewhere in his line of sight? So that he sees it immediately when he wakes up.”

 

General Organa took it from her with a small smile. Phasma expected it to look mocking, but realized after a moment that it didn’t look that way at all. “I can do that, Captain.”

 

“Thank you,” Phasma said, with a sharp nod. She turned toward Finn, Rey, and Poe. “Shall we?”

 

***

 

They took the Falcon out to the silent ship. Ren’s ship didn’t have a hangar, so Poe had to carefully bring them close alongside and connect with one of the airlocks. As the four of them stood waiting for the airlock to cycle open, Rey sent out a questioning thought toward Finn, glancing toward Phasma. 

 

Finn, they had discovered, was much better than her at sending thoughts and even full sentences into someone else’s mind. When his answer came, it was in the form of a feeling of extreme, skin-crawling uneasiness, an inability to sit still when there was no mission. 

 

_It’s not like they gave us a lot of down time_ , the words came along with the feeling. _It’s worse when you’re already upset. She was going to go insane if we didn’t give her something to do_.

 

Rey nodded, and in the next moment, the airlock whooshed open, and they all tensed, weapons at the ready. 

 

Nothing happened. Phasma looked carefully around the edges of the airlock, then stepped decisively into the ship. She turned back toward them and said, in a quiet voice that was much steadier than it had been aboard the transport, “The banks of escape pods are nearby. There should be two. We should check them first. I can take point, but we’ll need someone guarding our backs.”

 

“I should take point,” Rey said. “I’ll be able to react more quickly with the Force, that way, if we run into Ren.” She looked at Finn, remembering his words, then back to Phasma. “Can you take the rear guard?”

 

Phasma nodded, double-checking her blaster before aiming it back down the hallway behind them. They set off that way, silent and on edge.

 

There was nothing amiss in the first bank of escape pods. One was missing from the second. 

 

“Could be a feint,” Poe muttered. Rey nodded, and didn’t take her hand off her lightsaber.

 

Slowly, carefully, they made their way through the ship, checking behind every door. At last, they came to the cockpit, the only place they hadn’t checked. It was empty, as well. 

 

“He’s not on board,” Rey said. She crossed to the ship’s controls, popping open an access panel and getting down on her back on the floor, scooting her head and shoulders into the computer.

 

“What are you doing?” Phasma’s voice came from behind her. 

 

“Getting the computer logs,” Rey answered. “Rose can use them to figure out what happened. If either of the other ships turned back up.”

 

“She reverse-engineered the hyperspace tracking?” Phasma asked. “Rose, I mean. She was able to figure it out just by seeing how the First Order used it?”

 

“Yeah,” Finn said, proudly. “She’s good like that.”

 

Surprisingly, Phasma gave a short laugh. “General Hux will be furious. When…” She trailed off. 

 

There was silence for a little while after that. Rey concentrated on moving the clumps of wires, trying to get a good look at what was behind them.

 

“So,” Poe’s voice came, finally, “what’s with the cup?”

 

Phasma didn’t answer right away, and Rey thought she probably wouldn’t. But then she said, “Whenever I was… Well, General Hux always kept two glasses in his quarters on the _Finalizer_. For drinking whiskey.”

 

“Whiskey?” Poe asked, incredulously. 

 

“It tastes like smoke,” Phasma replied. Rey smiled. Phasma didn’t seem to realize that whiskey didn’t need to be explained to Poe. “It is… drinkable. He enjoys it. Anyway, I go on a lot of combat missions, and that results in a lot of injuries requiring confinement to the medbay. But whenever I woke up in the medbay, I’d find one of the glasses. On the table by my bed.”

 

“Why?” Poe asked. 

 

“So I’d know that I… When I was released from the medbay, I’d find him when his shift was over, and we’d have whiskey and debrief the mission. It was… pleasant, to have someone to talk to. When I woke up.”

 

If there would have been a response to that, it was cut off when Rey shouted “Got it!” from under the controls. She emerged holding a small black box, armored and shielded from radiation, with a single port where it could be plugged in. 

 

“Great!” Finn said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s go, this ship is creepy.”

 

“Maybe we could take it back to the transport with us,” Poe said, looking longingly at the pilot’s seat and the control panel. “Stash it in the hangar.”

 

Finn rolled his eyes and grabbed Poe’s shoulder, steering him back toward the door. “No way. Ren could have planted a tracking device anywhere. Or a booby trap. We have enough ships.”

 

“No such thing,” Poe responded, but he went with Finn. Phasma followed them out into the corridor. Rey was about to go, as well, when she felt something and stopped, her hair standing on end and her mind flooding with a mixture of affection and anger that was as confusing as it had ever been. 

 

“Hey, kid.”

 

She turned to face him. He leaned casually against the wall of the cockpit, despite the fact that he was translucent, tinged with blue. He looked the same as he had on Ahch-To, which surprised her. She had imagined that if he appeared, he’d be young again, the Luke Skywalker who had been the galaxy’s hope and savior. 

 

He smiled softly, warmly. “It’s good to see you.”

 

“Why now?” she asked. “It’s been months since you… since Crait. Why now?”

 

He considered the question for a long moment. “It’s hard to say. It’s certainly hard to explain. Where I am now… Well, some things become clearer here, and some things become a lot less clear. I’ve gained a lot of knowledge, but I think I’ve lost some, too, some memories. I’m not really sure if I’m completely Luke Skywalker or if I’m… parts of him, assembled into something new.” He shook his head. “What I do know, Rey, is that you’re standing at a turning point. And so, I’m here. To help you, if I can.” He spread his arms, gesturing to himself. 

 

“A turning point for me, or a turning point for everyone? For the galaxy?”

 

“A bit of both, I think.”

 

She was having trouble sorting through her emotions, looking at him. Part of her wanted to throw her arms around him, incorporeal as he was, tell him she missed him and she desperately wanted his guidance. Another part of her wanted to shout at him for not doing more to help her, to help everyone, when he was alive. The confusion made her snappish. “So, what, you’ll just show up to answer all my questions with wisdom from the great beyond?”

 

He shrugged. “Why, did you have questions?”

 

_Thousands_ , she thought, but what she said, after some thought, was, “How long was Snoke in Ben’s… Ren’s mind? How long was he preparing for this war? Who _was_ he? What did he want?”

 

Luke sighed and shook his head, his face sad. “Some of those questions I can’t answer. I don’t know who or what he was, or where he came from. But what I do know is this: in the first years I spent searching for potential students, trying to rebuild the Jedi Academy, I started to notice that things were going… wrong. Across the galaxy.”

 

“Going wrong with the Force?” Rey asked.

 

“I didn’t think so, at first. The problem seemed to be people. I sent my mind out as far as I could, looking for Force-sensitive kids to train. When I found them, a lot of them were… hurt. Their communities, sometimes their families, in the worst cases even their parents, had turned on them. Because they were afraid of them. I can’t even tell you the number of terrible superstitions about the Force I heard as I was traveling around. Some people swore the Force could be burned out of a person, some said it could be cut out, but it had to be gotten rid of, or it would destroy everything around it.”

 

Rey flinched. “Why? Why were they doing that? Why were they so afraid of the children?”

 

“That’s a very good question,” Luke answered. “One I asked myself over and over again. At first I thought it was just because there hadn’t been Jedi in so long, so the only example of the Force that anyone could see was Darth Vader. But the more I thought about it, and the more I went looking for a solution, the more I thought that I could perceive something moving through the Force. Moving across the entire galaxy, influencing things, pushing people down paths they otherwise may not have chosen. I thought I had to be imagining it at first, because I’d never seen anything like it. The scale of it. But it was there.”

 

“You think Snoke could do that?” Rey asked. “Why would he? He was Force sensitive himself…” She trailed off, the horror of it dawning on her.

 

“Of course he was,” Luke said. “A Force-sensitive mentor who could understand their suffering and their abilities. All across the galaxy, people were driving their own children right into his arms. Kylo isn’t the only Knight of Ren. With so many of my students, Ben included, it was like they were living in another world, and it seemed like nothing I could do would reach them. Their minds were far away from me. And that’s just the ones I found. Most of the kids I went looking for were long gone by the time I picked up their trails. Snoke was there, right under my nose in my Academy, in the heads of the people I’d promised to protect, and I didn’t realize. I was the only person who could have realized what was happening to those kids, the only other person they could have turned to, and I didn’t see in time.” Bitterness crept into his voice as he spoke, and a hot edge of anger. 

 

“Luke,” Rey started, hesitantly. “That night, with Ben… Was it…?”

 

“No,” he cut her off, with a decisive shake of his head. “You have no idea how tempting it is to think that. To explain myself, my mistakes, that way. I don’t know exactly how affected I was by what Snoke was doing to the galaxy, but I know that my actions were my own. What I did is mine to take responsibility for.”

 

His actions. What about her own? She sighed and looked at the floor, curling her arms around herself. “I messed up our plan. I missed what might have been my one chance at stopping Ren. All that power I’m supposed to have, and I failed. Who knows how many people are going to die because of it?”

 

“You are powerful, Rey,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you won’t fail. Snoke was enormously powerful, but he’s dead now because he was so confident in his control that he misunderstood what was happening right in front of his face. Powerful people make mistakes, and the biggest mistake is thinking that your power makes you infallible.”

 

Rey didn’t know whether to be comforted or irritated by his lecturing her, so she just sighed and continued recounting her woes. “And I also never realized that the General of the First Order is Force-sensitive. So now I have to figure out what to do about that.”

 

“Yeah, but,” Luke frowned exaggeratedly, “it seems like he might not be very good at being Force-sensitive.”

 

Rey shook her head. “I don’t even know how he managed to do that to himself. He’ll end up dead if he keeps using the Force.”

 

“Well, you could train him,” Luke said, as if he was mentioning the weather rather than suggesting something completely insane. 

 

Rey blinked at him in shock. “Train him? Why would I ever do that?”

 

“Because he’ll end up dead if he keeps using the Force the way he is. And, if you think about it, you already have one student.”

 

“You mean Finn? It’s not so much that I’m teaching him as that we’re figuring new things out together. And anyway, don’t I want Hux to end up dead? He’s my enemy.”

 

“Maybe you do,” Luke said.

 

She waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. Finally, she asked, hesitantly, “Is that what you want me to do? Train him?”

 

Luke thought about it, looking up at the ceiling, then shrugged. “I want you to succeed.”

 

“At what?”

 

“I don’t know yet. Like I said, some things are even less clear where I am now. But you’re doing something, you’ve set something in motion, and I want you to succeed.” He smiled fondly. “I’m cheering for you, Rey. I believe in you.”

 

A sudden sound in the corridor beyond the cockpit drew her attention, and she looked away. When she looked back, Luke was gone. The others hadn’t come looking for her yet. The whole conversation must have been compressed into a few seconds, somehow. She swallowed against the lump in her throat that had formed at his last words, and moved to the door. She thought Finn and Poe noticed that she had a strange expression on her face, but she didn’t say anything, just gestured back down the corridor.  

 

They were only slightly less on edge on their way back to the airlock. Finn was right, after all: Ren could have left traps anywhere. But they made it back to the Falcon without incident, and Rey took the co-pilot’s seat and watched in silence as Poe pulled them away from Ren’s ship and set them back on a path to the transport. 

 

What Rey had said to Luke was true: the most sensible thing to do would be to let Hux destroy himself with the Force. If the best outcome for the Resistance was Ren’s death, surely the second-best outcome was Hux’s. 

 

And yet… She’d had a chance, on Mustafar. She could have just let Hux and Phasma both be crushed when the ceiling caved in. All she’d had to do was nothing. But it hadn’t even crossed her mind to leave them to their fates. She’d reacted on instinct, and her instinct had been to save them. 

 

Leia had told her that her compassion was important. But she knew that it could also be a weakness, and if she wasn’t careful, her compassion could destroy everyone she loved and everything that she believed in. 

 

“Are you all right?” Poe asked her, interrupting her thoughts. “You’ve been really quiet. Did something happen on the ship?”

 

Rey looked out at the stars and nervously tapped her fingers against the computer log she still held. “I think… Yes, something did happen. I’m just not entirely sure what, yet.”

 

***

 

Phasma sat with her back perfectly straight, her hands resting on her knees, trying to keep herself still. Now that she wasn’t focusing on the exploration of Ren’s ship, panicky thoughts were creeping back in. She tried to be logical about them, but it was difficult. 

 

First possibility: the Resistance members left on the transport had taken advantage of her absence to kill Armitage. _Why would they wait, if that was their goal? It’s not like you could have fought them off after Mustafar, the state you were in_.

 

Second possibility: the medical droid had been wrong, and he’d taken a turn for the worse and died of his injuries. _Then there would have been nothing you could have done, even if you’d been there. You’re not a doctor_. 

 

She told herself sternly that there was a third possibility: the medical droid had been absolutely right, and he was either awake or about to be. They’d been gone for a few hours, after all. In any case, there was nothing she could do until she was back aboard the transport. She took a deep breath. Idly, she wondered if she should try to sneak away and find the engines, see if she could figure out what had been done to them so she could tell Armitage later, but her knowledge of ships’ engines was rudimentary at best. Besides, Finn was sitting across from her, watching her with an unreadable expression on his face.

 

Finally, after what seemed like an agonizing amount of time, the Millennium Falcon set down in the transport’s hangar and the hatch opened. Phasma was the first off the ship. 

 

General Organa had come to meet them. Armitage was standing next to her. 

 

Something exploded in Phasma’s mind that was eerily like the pure joy that she remembered experiencing as a child, before she’d been recruited as a Stormtrooper. He still looked pale, bruised, and utterly exhausted, but he was up, he was on his feet, his eyes were open, he was _there_. 

 

He smiled slightly when he caught sight of her and held up the little metal cup, collapsed back into a flat disk. “So,” he said in a hoarse voice. “That mission didn’t go entirely to plan.”

 

In three steps she was standing in front of him. She was seized by the absurd desire to lean toward him and just keep leaning, until her face was alongside his and she could put her hand on his chest and feel the heart beating behind the bone. She wanted to slide an arm around his narrow shoulders and pull him close to her, so that she could hold him up and be sure that nothing would get to him through her. 

 

She did none of those things, of course. She rested her hands lightly on his shoulders, though, just in case. He looked like he could fall over at any moment, and she would catch him if he did. 

 

“Sir,” she began, conscious of the others watching them, but she had to stop and clear her throat to get her voice to work properly. “Sir, if I may make a request?”

 

“Of course,” he answered. “Anything, Captain.”

 

“Please, in future, endeavor to be better at avoiding near death experiences.”

 

He rolled his eyes at her. “I’ll do my best, I’m sure. It’s… It’s good to see you, Captain. Are you alright?”

 

She snorted with laughter and nodded. When she could trust herself to speak, she asked, “Are you joking? Am _I_ alright?”

 

General Organa cleared her throat, and Phasma made herself turn to look at her. “What did you find on the ship?” the General asked.

 

Rey held up the little square she’d taken from under the control panel. “Ren was gone. It seems he took an escape pod, but this should give us more information. I’ll ask Rose to take a look at it.”

 

“Good,” General Organa said. 

 

Rey’s eyes slid toward Phasma and Armitage, hesitating. Finally, she sighed and nodded, as if she’d made up her mind. 

 

“General Hux,” she said. “You’re Force sensitive.”

 

“I’d noticed,” Armitage answered, but his shoulders tensed with wariness.

 

“I intend to train you.”

 

Finn and Poe openly gaped at her, shock and dismay on their faces, and even General Organa raised an eyebrow. 

 

Armitage stared at Rey as if she had unexpectedly grown a second head. “Why?”

 

“It should be obvious that there’s something wrong with the way you’re using the Force,” Rey answered with a shrug. “You need me to train you.”

 

“I… What… Absolutely not! That’s… We’re enemies, first of all! Also, I have no desire to be indoctrinated with mystical Jedi nonsense! Besides, I’ve already been training with Captain Phasma.”

 

Phasma was as surprised as he was, but she managed to give him an incredulous look at that. She shook his shoulder slightly to get his attention. “Sir,” she said, “I have no sensitivity to the Force myself. There’s only so far that training with me will get you.”

 

“What are you doing?” he hissed. “I can’t…”

 

“Wouldn’t you say,” she cut him off, “that a good commanding officer should use any and all resources at his disposal?”

 

He frowned. She held his gaze steadily. She didn’t know if it was possible to think loudly, but she tried her best to project the thought, _Take what you need and STAY ALIVE_. 

 

Whether because he had heard her or because he had realized how unreasonable his position was, he finally nodded, although he still looked dubious. 

 

“Fine.” He glared at Rey, although Phasma thought the effect was somewhat spoiled by the bruises around his eyes. “I’ll train with you. But I am _not_ your… Jedi student, or whatever it’s called.”

 

Rey just nodded, her arms folded. “Good. We start tomorrow.”


	6. Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains references to past child abuse.
> 
> I had to drag this chapter, kicking and screaming, out of the dark matter meat of my brain, but I think it turned out okay. My inspirations for the Force in this chapter were Dust in His Dark Materials and Stuff in The Gone-Away World. Rose's favorite game is go, but 3D and in space, and Poe's favorite game is based on backgammon.

General Organa had suggested, or possibly ordered, that they meet to discuss their next move. When they were all sitting down, General Organa folded her hands on the table in front of her and said, “So. There were obviously some secrets being kept on both sides. Which is understandable, we are enemies. But given the new dangers and complications of the situation in which we find ourselves, I think a little honesty is warranted. I’ll start. Kylo Ren is my son. Before he was Lord Ren, he was Ben Solo.”

 

Her voice wavered a little as she said it. Hux could only stare at her in shock. He couldn’t imagine anyone less like Ren. General Organa was calm, composed, capable of thinking her way out of difficult situations. Ren was… “But he’s so… so,” Hux stammered. 

 

“Tall?” General Organa asked, with an eyebrow raised, then laughed shortly. “Nevertheless, that’s the way it is. Rey tried to talk to him on Mustafar, to give him one last chance to… come back, I suppose.”

 

Rey shook her head. “He refused. It was the last chance I’ll offer him.”

 

“Also,” Finn said, “I’m Force-sensitive. So… there’s that.”

 

“It was latent in both of us,” Rey said. “He didn’t realize that he was reaching out to the Force until after Crait.”

 

“Did you use it on me on Starkiller?” Phasma asked. Her voice was even, but Hux could see how tense her back and shoulders were, the angry set of her jaw. 

 

Finn didn’t look away, and held his head up when he answered. “Yeah, I did. Not intentionally, but I would have used it the same way if I’d known. It had to be done.”

 

After a moment, Phasma shrugged and said, quietly, “It’s war.”

 

General Organa interrupted the moment by leaning forward and fixing her gaze on Hux. “Your turn,” she said.

 

Hux set his datapad on the table and brought up a holo of the scans they’d managed to get of the attack and rescue ships. He spoke quickly, warming to his subject. “As Phasma informed you yesterday, these are indeed First Order ships. K-216 Intercepts, to be precise. They’re fast, have moderate weapon capacity for their size, and can be flown by a single pilot, but they cannot stand up to a pitched battle as well as a fighter, and they can only comfortably carry up to four crewmen. Only a limited run of one hundred were constructed, and resources were reallocated after that. There is no record of what happened to the ones that were constructed.”

 

“Is that unusual?” General Organa asked. “For those records to be missing?”

 

“Exceedingly,” Hux answered.

 

“Someone else in the First Order has turned against Ren,” Rey said, leaning forward. “When I was talking to him, I managed to sneak into his mind and access some of his thoughts.” Phasma raised her eyebrows slightly, in a way Hux knew meant she was impressed. He was, as well, despite himself. “Just the ones closest to the surface. He felt betrayed, and was concerned that he had received no word from someone and that he should expect them to attack.”

 

Hux felt indignant at the idea that he might have missed someone else plotting against Ren, but, since he didn’t have another explanation for what Rey claimed to have found in Ren’s mind, he kept silent.

 

“Also,” Rey said, looking at Hux, “you left something out of your truth-telling.”

 

He rolled his eyes. “I would have thought I’d already made it obvious, but if you insist: I can use the Force. I am capable of it through no effort of my own, I have never made a habit of using it, and I intend to never touch it again as soon as Ren is dealt with.”

 

“How long have you known?” Rey asked.

 

“Twenty years,” Hux said grudgingly. 

 

“And Snoke just let you carry on as a soldier?” Rey pressed. “He didn’t make you become one of his apprentices?”

 

“I’m sure he would have, but I was very careful to ensure he never found out.”

 

Rey narrowed her eyes at him and looked like she was going to ask more questions, but General Organa forestalled her. “This might be a conversation to save for training. Rose, what did you find from the ship’s computer log?”

 

Rose shrugged. “It’s pretty much what we thought: the attack ship found him again, got a couple good shots in, but was driven off. Ren’s ship had better weaponry, but the propulsion on his ship was disabled, and he had to take an escape pod. But the log had signatures for each of the pods, so if we come in range of it, our scanners will be alerted.”

 

General Organa frowned, thinking, then said, “He won’t be making a hyperspace jump, not in an escape pod. He’ll have sent a distress call to the nearest First Order ship and will be lying low, waiting for them to arrive. We should start a systematic search, spiraling out from the location of his ship and scanning for the escape pod. It’s a small chance, but we might be able to catch him and keep this from getting worse. Those of us who can fly will take shifts. Everyone else should try to get some sleep.”

 

Hux gave a sharp nod, then realized to his utter disgust that he’d straightened in his seat and given General Organa his full attention, as if receiving orders from a superior officer. The damned woman was so authoritative, it had been automatic. He made a point of saying, “Agreed,” just to restate the fact that he was also a General.

 

Rey caught his eye across the table. “Six hours. Then we’ll train.” Hux’s heart sank.

 

***

 

Six hours later, Hux found himself sitting cross-legged on the floor of a storage room with his coat off and glaring across the room at Rey and Finn, feeling completely ridiculous. The other two were sitting with their eyes closed. As he watched, Rey smiled slightly and wrinkled her nose, as if something had happened that was amusing. He wondered if they were capable of holding silent conversations through the Force.

 

“Is this really necessary?” he asked acidly. “It seems to me that all I really need to know is how to throw something heavy at Ren.”

 

Rey opened one eye to look at him. “We do this every time we train. It helps us work better together.”

 

“What, just sitting?”

 

“Aren’t you watching what we’re doing?” Rey asked, and closed her eye again.

 

It took him a moment to grasp the meaning of the words. When he did, he shut his eyes, too, and tried to look at them with the Force. 

 

He could sense their minds, burning with thought like suns in the vacuum of space, and between them… Something like a bridge, ephemeral and too indistinct to make out clearly, but full of movement and communication going back and forth. He had just had time to wonder how they’d done it (and if it was possible to make a bridge like that to someone who wasn’t Force-sensitive) when a tendril of thought reached out from Rey’s mind and snagged his. 

 

His mind spiked with panic and his entire body tensed, ready to fight, but she did nothing to grip him or hold him still or force him into any action. She was simply there, weaving a link between them that applied neither pressure nor pain. 

 

“That’s a trick I learned from Snoke,” he heard her voice say in the world beyond his mind, sounding amused. “It’s like what he did to connect Ren and I, only less… intrusive.”

 

He opened his eyes, just to see what would happen if he did. Rey and Finn hadn’t moved, but as he shifted, looking around him, they opened their eyes, as well. He could still feel the link Rey had constructed, and it gave him a strange sense of double vision, as if he was experiencing two realities at the same time.

 

“Alright,” Rey said. “This will let me see what you’re doing when you use the Force. Start small, just reach out toward me and try to push me. As if you were shoving my shoulders.”

 

Hux was nervous about trying to use the Force again so soon, but he was so generally frustrated that he liked the idea of shoving someone. He closed his eyes and reached out toward her, trying to do the reverse of what he’d done with the training staves and Ren’s lightsaber, pushing away instead of pulling toward himself. He’d hardly touched her when he felt a warning flare of pain in his head, and he retreated, opening his eyes and frowning. 

 

“That hurt,” he said. “Will it always do that?”

 

Rey and Finn both looked at him in confusion, and Rey frowned in thought. “That’s so odd,” she said.

 

“What?” Hux asked, self-consciousness making him snappish. 

 

“You’re seeing it, too, then?” a voice he’d never heard before asked, from behind him, and he whirled to see, of all people, Luke Skywalker leaning against a wall, watching them, slightly transparent and suffused with a blue glow.

 

Finn made a wordless, excited noise, but Rey’s voice sounded completely calm when she asked, “What are you doing here?”

 

“Where the hell is that being projected from?” Hux asked.

 

“It’s not a projection,” Rey said. “Or, not a mechanical one. He’s appearing here using the Force.”

 

“That’s possible?!” Hux asked.

 

“I wanted to see you teach,” Luke said. 

 

“Is someone going to tell me what I’m doing wrong, or are we all just going to sit here marveling at each other until Ren appears and murders us?” Hux snapped. 

 

Infuriatingly, Luke Skywalker’s face didn’t change at all at that. He just looked at Rey and raised an eyebrow, making a beckoning motion with his hand.

 

“He’s…” Rey frowned in thought. Hux felt like a science experiment being discussed by a couple of researchers, and cleared his throat irritably. Rey glanced at him. “I think you’re trying to use the Force and push it away from yourself at the same time. As if you’re trying to keep it at a distance.”

 

“I’m not…” Hux trailed off, realizing that pushing the Force away and keeping it at a distance was precisely what he had been doing for twenty years. 

 

Rey nodded. “You are. You’re pulling yourself in opposite directions when you use the Force. That’s what’s hurting you.”

 

“So I just have to stop pushing the Force away.” The thought filled him with dread.

 

“You have to stop basing every interaction with it on fear,” Skywalker said. 

 

“I’m not afraid!” Hux said indignantly. 

 

“Really?” Skywalker asked. “What were you feeling the first time you were aware of the Force?”

 

His indignation turned to rage so quickly that even he had a hard time following it. The next thing he knew, he was on his feet. “That’s none of your damn business!” he shouted, trying not to remember weeks spent moving through life dully, like a ghost, only coming alive again at the thought of being invincible, unhurtable but powerful enough to hurt someone else. The walls of the room rattled, and he looked around in confusion. 

 

Skywalker just shrugged. “Fair enough. You don’t have to tell me. Just tell yourself. Were you afraid?” Hux stayed silent. “You want the Force to protect you, but you also feel you have to protect yourself from it.”

 

“Of course I do. There is no such thing as a gift. If it protected me, it would want something in return. It would have turned me into something I’m not.”

 

Skywalker sighed and looked at the ceiling for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “The Force, as you interact with it, isn’t an entity, it’s a relationship,” he began. “The Force is like light.”

 

Hux snorted. “How poetic.” Skywalker gave him a sharp look and he decided not to say anything else.

 

“Like light,” Skywalker began again, pointedly, “it moves through the universe on a steady path, but like light, it can be bent. Light is bent and altered by gravity, the Force is bent and altered by consciousness. And no consciousness alters it more than a Force-sensitive one. Everyone uses the Force differently because the Force becomes different when it bends around each individual. So yes, you were right to be afraid: the Force would have turned you into something else you because that’s what you expected from it. But that doesn’t mean it has to. You shape it, not the other way around.”

 

“How… How do I do that?”

 

Again, instead of answering, Skywalker looked at Rey. Hux turned to look at her, too.

 

“I have an idea,” she said, and Hux felt movement along the link between them. “Grab onto me.”

 

“Grab onto you?” he echoed, but at this point, it was more for show than anything else. It was disturbing to him how quickly he was learning to follow what the others were doing with the Force. He sat back down and sent out a tendril of his own mind and touched hers, imagined holding on.

 

“Watch what I do, carefully,” she said. “Watch the Force.”

 

A moment later he was sensing her mind move, and realized that he could also make out the subtler motion of the Force over, around, and through her mind. She moved with it, or moved it, so effortlessly. She pushed gently against one of his shoulders.

 

“Did you see what I did?” she asked. He nodded uncertainly. “You try it.”

 

He made an effort, he really did, but it was like fighting against a reflex or struggling to overwrite muscle memory. He couldn’t seem to synch up with the Force seamlessly, the way Rey had. He made an inarticulate noise of disgust and frustration.

 

“You’re still approaching it with fear,” Skywalker said. 

 

“So what if I am!” he snapped. “This is supposed to be about what I’m _doing_ , I don’t see why what I’m feeling needs to play a role! All I have to do is stop pushing the Force away, and it won’t matter if I’m afraid!”

 

“The old Jedi used to say that fear was the path to the Dark Side,” Skywalker answered.

 

“There’s no such thing as Light and Dark,” Hux said firmly. “There’s only order and chaos.”

 

Skywalker met his eyes with a suddenly serious expression, and Hux leaned back slightly as he saw a bit of the warrior who had vanquished the Empire in his gaze. “You want to use the Force in fear?” he said in a low, urgent tone. “Fine. But it isn’t a good idea. I learned that the hard way. I let my fear overwhelm me only once, and only for a moment, but in that moment I destroyed my family, pushed someone I loved down the path to darkness, and lost the faith I had once had in myself. So trust me, kid, you want to deal with your fear before it makes you do something you’ll regret.”

 

Silence was the only response Hux could think of to that. He was so taken aback that he didn’t have the presence of mind to be offended at being called “kid.”

 

“Why don’t you try, really consciously try, to hold onto the opposite?” Rey asked suddenly. “The opposite of fear, I mean.”

 

“Emotions don’t have opposites,” Hux said, narrowing his eyes at her. 

 

“Sure they do,” she said, grinning, and he sensed something being offered to him through the link between their minds. When he seized hold of it, he was overwhelmed by the idea of making bread, just simple freeze-dried, powdered ingredients poured into water and left to rise, but meaning the world to someone used to scrounging and scavenging and going hungry. 

 

A moment later, he felt Rey take something from Finn’s mind and offer it to him. Rey’s feelings were replaced by a feeling of being able to choose to be alone, able to close a door and trust that the people on the other side would respect him and care about him enough to give him the time to order his thoughts. “That’s what it is for us,” Rey said, with a smile toward Finn. “What is it for you?”

 

 _People leaving me the hell alone_ , was his first thought. Fear was a belt cracking across his shoulders and hands holding him down and the drowning feeling of knowing that he was cornered. The opposite of fear should be solitude. 

 

But it wasn’t, he realized. It wasn’t that at all. He remembered waking up in the transport’s medbay after Mustafar, confused and afraid that he’d lost Phasma, and seeing the cup resting on a chair beside his cot. Knowing she’d been there, knowing she was alive and safe and that he’d see her soon, had been a relief so powerful it had erased his fear as if it had never been there at all. The opposite of fear was the unexpected pleasure of a person appearing in his life who added something to him, instead of taking away.

 

He closed his eyes, took a breath, and went in search of the corner of his consciousness where he’d walled his sensitivity to the Force away for twenty years, trying in vain to completely sever it from him. He approached it slowly, imagining that he was holding in his hand the tiny cup from Phasma’s field flask. He felt the Force moving around him and realized that Skywalker had been right: it was like him, in a way. There was a tenseness in it, like a wounded creature raising its hackles. 

 

He imagined holding the little cup out toward it, like an offering. 

 

A second later, he pushed gently against Rey’s shoulders. He could have pushed harder, tried to knock her over, but in the moment he found that he didn’t want to. There was no pain in his head, no blood coming from his nose. It had worked.

 

“That’s it,” Rey said. 

 

Standing again, Hux turned around, looking for something else he could do. He felt like he was buzzing with energy. He picked one of the heavy crates against the far wall and reached out to the Force again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Skywalker lean over Rey and Finn and whisper something to them as they looked up at him with serious faces. But he was too focused on lifting one of the crates, and too ecstatic when he succeeded at getting it an inch off the ground for a second, to take much notice.

 

When he turned back to them, Skywalker had disappeared.

 

***

 

 _Damn_ , Phasma thought as she approached the canteen and heard voices from inside. She’d brought a supply of field rations on this mission that she’d been subsisting on, but they were running low and she thought she should keep them for the actual field. The Resistance apparently had rations to spare. Unfortunately, the Resistance also apparently spent their free time in the damned canteen. 

 

Despite her hunger, she briefly considered just turning around and going back to her bunk. _To hell with that, though_. She wasn’t going to slink around this ship like a stowaway. If she wanted food, she’d get it, and the Resistance be damned. She set her shoulders and strode around the corner into the room. 

 

Rose and Poe were sitting across from each other at the table, looking consideringly at a holo of a cube that had been gridded into squares. Many of the squares had either a white or a black dot in the center. Chewbacca sat back in his chair, watching what they were doing intently. They all looked up when she walked in, staring at her without saying anything. She hated when people did that.

 

“No, please, there’s no need to get up,” she said, keeping her voice flat. “Shouldn’t at least one of you be flying the ship?”

 

“Leia’s at the helm,” Poe said. “She wanted some time alone. I’ll take over in a few.”

 

“You call your General by her given name?” Phasma asked disapprovingly. Poe raised an eyebrow at her, and she realized that her question had been a bit hypocritical. 

 

She had intended to go about her business as quickly as possible and get out of the Resistance members’ way, but her attention was caught by the holo they were all staring at. She found herself pausing in the doorway of the canteen, watching as Rose moved her fingers through the holo cube. She tapped a fingertip into an empty square, and a white dot appeared at its center. A nearby black dot abruptly changed its color to white, and Poe groaned. 

 

“How did I miss that?” Poe said in an exasperated tone, leaning forward onto his elbows on the table and looking hard at the cube. 

 

“I told you,” Rose said, grinning, “I’m the _best_ at this. I even used to beat Paige, sometimes, and she taught me how to play.”

 

“What are you doing?” Phasma asked, despite her better judgment. 

 

They all looked up at her again, and she had the brief, unsettling thought that they wouldn’t answer her, just stare and stare until she left. But then Poe leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. “We’re playing a game,” he said. “Or at least Rose is playing, I’m just getting my ass handed to me.”

 

“No one’s an expert when they first start,” Rose said, with exaggerated magnanimity that contrasted with her smirk.

 

“It doesn’t look like a game,” Phasma said. 

 

Poe shrugged. “You probably don’t play a lot of games as a Stormtrooper, right? That’s what Finn said.”

 

“That’s not true!” Phasma said, stung. Her voice was a little sharper than she’d intended. “We ran games. They were rewards when we’d done well, we had pressure-free drills. The outcomes and individual performances wouldn’t go on a trooper’s record.” Phasma frowned, feeling oddly hurt. “I ran frequent games for my troopers.”

 

“But that’s not… a game,” Rose said, as if she was explaining something that should be self-evident. “That’s just a military drill.”

 

“Well, what’s a game, then?” Phasma asked, waving her hand at the holo cube.

 

“Ah, well,” Rose said proudly, “this is the best game. Simple rules, difficult strategy. That’s the way all the best games are. One person is white, the other is black, and you place your pieces in the squares. If you can surround one of the other player’s pieces, it changes to your color. Your goal is to cover the board with your color.”

 

“Is that…” Phasma blinked at the cube. “Is that meant to simulate psychological warfare? Or siege tactics? I can’t even tell, it’s such a gross oversimplification.”

 

Rose made a frustrated sound. “It’s not supposed to simulate anything. It’s just a game.”

 

Phasma watched as Poe took his turn, then Rose, then Poe again. Every so often, Chewbacca would make an noise that sounded, to Phasma’s ear, like a declaration of imminent attack but that Rose and Poe would respond to as if it was ordinary conversation. After a while, Phasma moved to the table and took the spare chair.

 

As Phasma watched, she tried to puzzle out what Rose’s and Poe’s strategies were. You could tell a lot about a trooper by the way they performed in drills; she imagined the same was true here, but she was too unfamiliar with and confused by the game to gain any useful information from it. After a while, it appeared to be wrapping up. Most of the cube was occupied by white dots, Rose was smiling broadly, and Poe was making exaggerated faces of displeasure at her, wrinkling his nose and narrowing his eyes and sticking out his tongue. 

 

Phasma tensed slightly, startled, when Chewbacca gave a sudden roar that trilled up and down through several tones. Rose looked at him with her eyebrows raised. “Are you sure?” she asked. The Wookiee made another sound that Phasma guessed must be an affirmative. 

 

Rose turned to Phasma and said, “He was going to play the winner, but he says you should play his round instead. He doesn’t usually do things like that, he’s really competitive.” Chewbacca made another sound and Rose grinned at him. 

 

Phasma wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to play, especially not against Rose, who was certainly going to beat Poe and would just as certainly beat Phasma, but she recognized that the offer would be interpreted by the Resistance members as a kind gesture, and was perhaps even meant as one. So she turned stiffly in her chair to face Chewbacca and said, “Thank you… sir.” She had no idea what rank anyone held in the Resistance, with the exception of General Organa, but she knew that Chewbacca had extensive combat experience and had flown with the original Rebellion, so she figured that addressing him with the respect due to a superior officer wasn’t such a bad idea. He only nodded and growled.

 

“Agh, dammit, that’ll do it,” Poe said, after another few minutes of playing. The cube was now entirely filled in with white dots. Poe turned to look at Phasma and said, “Wait, I have an idea. Since there’s four of us, why don’t we let Chewie play Rose at her game, and I’ll teach you my favorite game instead. It’s way better.” Rose rolled her eyes at him.

 

“Does your favorite game involve flying ships?” Phasma asked.

 

Poe looked affronted. “Not everything I do involves flying ships, you know. Here, I’ll show you.” He fiddled with the controls on the table, and the cube moved over until it hovered between Rose and Chewbacca, blank once more, and a flat square surrounded by a raised barrier appeared between Phasma and Poe. The square was divided into long rectangles, each of which contained two triangles, their points touching. 

 

Rose and Chewbacca began their game as Poe explained the rules of his to Phasma. Apparently, they had to migrate each of their pieces from one side of the board to the other, while the other player did the same in the opposite direction. A random number generator projected over the board gave you a number of moves that could be divided among your pieces. Moving one piece out on its own was faster, but left the piece open to being knocked out by one of the opponent’s pieces and having to start over.

 

“Straightforward,” Phasma said, and the game began. 

 

She moved cautiously the first few times, never letting a piece stand alone, but on her fourth move, the numbers she’d gotten left her no choice but to make a couple of pieces vulnerable.

 

 _Of fucking course_ , she thought, when Poe was immediately able to take one of them off the board. She made an irritated sound, and he looked up at her, grinning. “That’s war,” he said, a little wryly.

 

“Like a living thing grows in size,” Phasma murmured in agreement, then smiled at her own joke, glancing at the number she’d been given and moving two pieces accordingly. 

 

Rose looked at her in confusion. “What? What does that mean?”

 

Phasma looked between the three of them, surprised, not seeing any recognition of the phrase. “Axiom Thirteen?” Still nothing. “Oh, I suppose… It’s Axiom Thirteen of the First Order Command Book. I thought the Axioms were universal, or old, or something. I thought everyone had them. I didn’t realize the First Order had written them.”

 

“You have a command book?” Poe asked, eyebrows raised. “What, like a manual or something? Did they give it to you as soon as you became an officer?”

 

“Well, they didn’t give it to me,” Phasma answered. “I’m just a Stormtrooper. But General Hux attended the First Order’s Military Academy, and they teach the Command Book there. He told me some of them.”

 

“What’s Axiom Thirteen, then?” Rose asked.

 

Phasma looked at the ceiling as she tried to remember the exact wording. She’d memorized that one particular Axiom because it had caught her attention. “Wars grow,” she began the quotation. “Like a living thing grows in size, a war grows in violence. And like a living thing, it must be fed. A commander who fed a hundred men to the war yesterday must be prepared to feed it a thousand today. What was unthinkable yesterday must become today’s routine.”

 

“That’s… pardon my language, but that’s completely fucking horrible.” Poe moved his pieces with quick, angry motions of his hand as he spoke.

 

“What does that matter? It’s true.” Phasma tapped the number generator and considered her options. “There are only two ways out of a war once you’re in one. You win or you die. No one wants to die, so everyone does whatever they must.”

 

“Yeah, and there’s no such thing as a noncombatant, right?” Poe said, looking at the board instead of at her face as she cautiously moved a pair of pieces together. 

 

“That’s from Axiom Nine,” Phasma said. 

 

“Good thing the Axioms justify destroying entire planets,” Poe said, stabbing the number generator with one finger. 

 

Phasma grit her teeth in irritation. “Starkiller was a planet. The Resistance destroyed it.”

 

Poe moved his pieces, then sat back with a sigh. “My dad was part of the Republic Senate,” he said, a little grudgingly. “Its buildings and functions were spread out over the Hosnian system. So we spent a lot of time there while I was growing up. It wasn’t my home system, but it was a place I loved. It was beautiful. And now it’s just gone. So I think it’s pretty understandable that I’m angry.”

 

Phasma pressed the number generator and considered her move as she answered, “I agree.”

 

“You do?”

 

“Of course. I am also angry.”

 

“About what? About Starkiller?”

 

Phasma moved her pieces, took a deep breath to steady herself. “I’ve been an FN Stormtrooper since I was eight years old. Now I’m their Captain, and they are General Hux’s most trusted troops. He wouldn’t have given the security of his weapon to anyone but us. I had six combat groups garrisoned on Starkiller. That’s 750 troopers.” 

 

She watched him make his move, leaving one of his pieces alone and undefended three spaces from two of her pieces. One of the next numbers that she got from the generator was a three. With sudden vindictiveness, she moved one of her pair to knock his lone piece off the board.

 

“When Starkiller was crippled,” she continued, “the officers and technicians broke ranks first. They went straight for the shuttles. General Hux could have, _would_ have managed the evacuation with more order, but he was off pulling Lord Ren out of the snow and onto his own personal shuttle, on the Supreme Leader’s ridiculous orders. My Stormtroopers held their positions, as they had been trained to, waiting for my command. Which I didn’t give, because I was in a garbage chute that was cutting off the signal from my communicator.” She swallowed hard and had to resist the urge to bare her teeth. “By the time I got out of there, there wasn’t enough time, nor were there enough remaining shuttles to get all my troopers off the planet. Some of the shuttles that had taken off weren’t even fucking _full_.”

 

She trailed off, and Poe reached for the number generator. Too late, she realized what she’d done. Her move to take his piece had left both pieces of the formerly strong pair exposed. _Of fucking course_ , she thought as the number generator gave Poe exactly what he needed to knock them both off the board. 

 

She leaned back in her chair and ran a hand across the top of her head, feeling suddenly tired. “Of 750 troopers stationed on Starkiller, I lost 691. They were my responsibility, and I gave up the information that killed them. I don’t blame Finn, it’s a war, everyone uses every weapon they have. But I am angry. I don’t enjoy killing, but that’s what war is. One side wins, the other side dies. Those are the only two ways out.”

 

She knew she should tap the number generator, take her turn. The game was waiting on her. But she stayed leaning back in her chair. 

 

“I…” Poe began, but his datapad, sitting on the table beside his hand, started beeping an alarm. “That’s me, I’ve got to go relieve Leia. Thanks for playing,” he said, with a grim smile, and she nodded an acknowledgment.

 

He paused at the door, looked back at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “About the troopers on Starkiller.”

 

She stared at him in surprise for a moment, then looked down at the floor and muttered, “I’m sorry about the Hosnian System.” 

 

When he was out of the room, Phasma stood up, as well. “I should get back to…” She didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t have anything to get back to. The mission had devolved into a waiting game, and she hated those.

 

“You know,” Rose said, conversationally, not looking away from her game against Chewbacca, but there was a tight tremble in her voice. “My sister Paige taught me this game. She practically raised me after our parents died. She died in the bomb run on the Destroyer. Every morning when I wake up, there’s a split second where I still think I’m going to be able to see her and talk to her that day. And then I remember, and I feel the gap in my life all over again.” Rose looked up and met Phasma’s gaze. “I know you said that you were protecting your family, but they’re still carrying around that gap. They’ll always have to, and so will you. The First Order said they were protecting my planet, but they ended up bombing it until most of it was uninhabitable. When it comes to the First Order, there’s a fine line, isn’t there, between protecting something and destroying it.”

 

 Phasma looked away. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

 

Rose shrugged. “You want a way out of this war. So do the rest of us. I’m just saying, maybe you’re hoping for the wrong side to win.”

 

“Thank you for the game,” Phasma said shortly. Rose nodded, and Phasma turned to go.

 

***

 

Later, after Armitage had taken his turn at flying the ship and been relieved by Chewbacca, they sat side-by-side on the floor of Phasma’s bunk and talked about the Force.

 

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Phasma asked, confused at the worried expression on his face. “You can use it properly now, without it hurting you.”

 

“I suppose,” he said, quietly. “It’s only… It felt good, to use it properly. It was a relief. I had stopped noticing how much effort it took to constantly wrestle with the Force, to keep it away, but once the effort was gone…” He shook his head. “It might have been better when it hurt me. I don’t want to get too used to it.”

 

She knew what he really meant, what he was really afraid of, so she said, “Didn’t Skywalker say that _it_ changes when it encounters _you_ , and not the other way around? You’re still you, Armitage.”

 

“I still feel like myself,” he said. “But there are people relying on me, and I don’t…” He glanced at her and smiled a little nervously. “I don’t want to do anything, become anything, that puts you at risk.”

 

“Armitage, you are my ally,” she said. “If you’ll recall, you’re my _only_ ally. I am at my safest when you’re alive and well.”

 

He laughed and leaned against her. It was a good feeling; her conversation with Rose and Poe had left her feeling unsettled, but having his weight pressed against her side made her feel strong and stable.

 

“I suppose we should get some rest,” he said, finally.

 

She glanced over her shoulder at her bed. “You’re already here,” she ventured. 

 

He shifted away from her so he could look at her. “Do you… do you think you need help sleeping?”

 

She wasn’t sure if she’d need help sleeping. She could tell him that. But she was tired of thinking only about what she needed.

 

“It’s just,” she said. “You’re already here. And I _want_ you to stay.” Uncertain, all of a sudden, she asked, tentatively, “Do you want to stay?”

 

“I do,” he said, very softly. She stood up, offered him her hand, pulled him to his feet. 

 

Everything felt safer when they were lying back to back, her shoulders lined up with his, listening to him breathing. She knew it wasn’t true, that they were in just as much danger as they always were, but it was enough to send her sliding into sleep much more quickly than usual.

 

Just before she drifted off, she heard him mumble, “I thought of you today. While I was using the Force. It helped.”

 

She was too close to unconsciousness to respond in words, but she smiled.


	7. Old Wounds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains references to past child abuse.
> 
> The Battle of the Tannen System is named after my own favorite battle, the First Battle of Tannenberg (also known as the Battle of Grunwald) in 1410. I had a section on it in my undergrad thesis, and my advisor, who was a military historian, said it was his favorite part, for obvious reasons :)

This time, Phasma had decided, she was going to actually get something to eat from the Resistance supplies, and wouldn’t be distracted by anything that was going on in the canteen. 

 

Armitage had decided to come with her. Some combination of training with the Force and not having access to his usual steady diet of stimulants and appetite suppressants had left him absolutely ravenous. Phasma imagined that the Resistance probably ate the same space-friendly, nutrient-packed, freeze-dried pastes that the First Order did, but as long as the opportunity was there, they’d be foolish not to help themselves.

 

As it turned out, there was something going on in the canteen. Every one of the Resistance members, with the exception of Chewbacca, who was taking a turn at the helm of the ship, was gathered around the table, listening to Poe animatedly tell a story. They all glanced up when Phasma and Armitage walked in, but they were apparently too engrossed in the story to pay much attention. 

 

Phasma pointed across the room toward the refrigerator, and walked to it as Poe said, “So then I dared Ben to jump in.”

 

Finn laughed. “Why?”

 

“I didn’t realize he’d actually do it!” Poe protested. “So then, of course, I had to jump in the mud puddle too.”

 

“ _Why?_ ” Finn asked again, with more emphasis.

 

“So that he wouldn’t be the only one who got in trouble!”

 

Phasma opened the door to the refrigerator and peered inside. There wasn’t anything there she recognized. She raised an eyebrow at Armitage, who frowned, puzzled, then shrugged and pointed at a large, clear container holding several white dough balls that were the size of her two fists together. She opened the container and brought out two of the dough balls, handing one to Armitage.

 

“So, of course, we’re both just covered in mud,” Poe was saying. “And this gala starts in twenty minutes, and neither of us have any idea what to do. And the first person who finds us is my dad. So he rushes us back to the suite we were staying in and makes us shower and get cleaned up in this huge hurry. And Ben had a spare set of fancy clothes, of course, because Leia plans for everything…”

 

“I try,” General Organa said wryly, shaking her head.

 

“But my parents hadn’t packed a spare for me, so my dad had to run to all the other families to see if someone had something I could wear. I ended up in something that was a couple sizes too big for me. And Ben was so mad at me for daring him that he wouldn’t even talk to me, but he was the one who chose to jump in!”

 

“Did you make it to the gala on time?” Rey asked, as if she was a child listening to her parents tell a favorite story. 

 

Phasma realized that, although they had made no agreement between them, both she and Armitage had stopped by the doorway, listening and waiting to hear what Poe would say.

 

“We were five minutes late,” Poe said. “My mom was so confused when she saw us, and my dad just…” He mimed a huff of exasperation. “‘Don’t ask, love, just don’t ask.’”

 

The Resistance members gathered around the table all laughed. Even General Organa did, a big laugh of genuine mirth. It hadn’t been a particularly interesting story, Phasma thought, but Rey and Finn and Rose had all seemed anxious to hear it. For some reason that she couldn’t quite figure out, she had wanted to hear it, too. 

 

“Oh, Kes,” General Organa said, fondly, shaking her head. “I would have just told you that you couldn’t come. But he didn’t want you to miss out on anything. He loved that you were growing up free, and he just wanted everything to go your way.”

 

Idly, Phasma took a bite of the dough ball, and immediately made an embarrassingly high-pitched sound of complete surprise. It tasted… It _tasted_. There was some kind of paste inside the dough, so dark brown that it was almost purple, and it was salty and sweet and burned the inside of her mouth a little bit, even though it was cold, and it was like every flavor she had ever tasted, and several that she hadn’t, had been condensed down into a single space. 

 

“What is it?” Armitage whispered to her, alarmed. She wasn’t sure how to respond, so she just swallowed her first bite and took another. 

 

“Those are good, aren’t they?” General Organa asked her, looking at them from the table. “They’re my favorite recipe. After the war, I wanted to spend some time on my birth mother’s planet, Naboo. With Alderaan gone… Well, anyway, I didn’t end up staying long on Naboo, but I loved the food, so I learned as many recipes as I could.”

 

“It’s…” Phasma had, by that point, eaten three-quarters of the dough ball, and was completely unsure how to describe it. “It’s unbelievable,” she finally said. Armitage looked between her and the dough ball he held suspiciously. 

 

“Do you not have good food in the First Order?” Poe asked.

 

“No, they do not,” Finn answered him.

 

“Well,” General Organa said, “if you’re going to eat and listen to stories, you might as well pull up a chair. There are spares in the cupboard over there.” She pointed. 

 

Phasma and Armitage glanced at each other, then went to the cupboard and pulled out a folding chair each. 

 

***

 

Leia watched the First Order General and Captain set up their chairs and sit down, looking at the rest of them warily. 

 

She remembered the first time she’d seen a holo of General Hux, her surprise at the fact that a young man barely older than her own son had been placed in charge of the First Order’s entire military. But then she’d thought of herself and Luke and Han, how young they’d been in their fight against the Empire. It wasn’t good to underestimate the drive and fire of youth. No one believed in themselves as strongly as young people did. 

 

Out of his uniform coat, in just his shirtsleeves, General Hux looked skinnier than he did in the holos. Beside him, Captain Phasma was still an imposing figure, even in only a black long-sleeved shirt and a pair of uniform pants tucked into her chrome armored boots, her scarred face blankly serious. Her hair was cut Stormtrooper short, sticking up in tiny golden spikes from her head.

 

They were both so damned tall, towering over everyone else at the table, but out of armor and full uniform, there was something a bit awkward about them, hesitant and unsure. It reminded her of… She cut off her train of thought. That way lay madness. Her son was long gone, and these two were her enemies. 

 

She could feel the tension as they all sat around the table staring at each other, so she leaned back in her chair and said, “I remember, Poe, the first conversation I had with your mother, it was after a battle where she’d flown her squadron through these absolutely beautiful maneuvers. I went to find her after we’d won and she was leaning against her ship, white-faced, and when I asked her what was wrong she told me that her radar and sensors had cut out about ten minutes in to the fight. She’d flown the whole thing by eye alone, and no one could tell! And she just says, ‘If you see Kes Dameron, don’t tell him about that. He worries.’”

 

Poe sat up straighter, beaming with pride. “That sounds like my mom,” he said. “What battle was that?”

 

Leia thought for a moment. “I think… No, which system was it? We’d had several battles back to back, we’d been moving through a string of systems trying to take them. This one, we’d caught a fleet of Imperial ships unawares when they were focused on catching up to a group of deserters.”

 

General Hux drew in a sharp breath. “The Battle of the Tannen System,” he said. The corner of Captain Phasma’s mouth turned up slightly, a ghost of a grin.

 

“Yes, that’s the one,” Leia said, and then, too late, realized that he was probably angry with her for bringing it up. He couldn’t help but see it as an insult. “I was lucky,” she said, as a peace offering. “I had the element of surprise.”

 

“And total tactical superiority,” General Hux said, a little fiercely. Leia blinked at him in surprise. He looked down at the table and muttered, “I wrote my final battle analysis on it. When I was a student at the First Order Military Academy.”

 

“I wouldn’t have expected that,” Leia said. “Considering my opponent in that battle was…”

 

“My father, yes,” General Hux said, and actually smiled, a little triumphantly. “He was furious when he found out I’d elected to analyze it. But I’d gotten the top marks, so he couldn’t say anything. He had to smile through my graduation ceremony while all my Instructors congratulated him on my work.”

 

Captain Phasma snorted with laughter and bumped her shoulder against the General’s, making him sway slightly in his chair. 

 

“Of course,” he went on, as if he was saying something as innocuous as what he’d had for breakfast, “he beat me bloody as soon as he got me alone after the ceremony. But it was worth it.” He ducked his head, unsuccessfully trying to hide his smile. “Worth it.”

 

He took a bite of the dumpling he’d gotten out of the refrigerator, and his eyes got very wide. He glanced at Captain Phasma, who nodded emphatically and popped the rest of her dumpling into her mouth.

 

Leia glanced at Poe, Rey, Finn, and Rose, who all looked as puzzled as she was. Her first, animal instinct was anger and indignation; even before she’d become a mother, she’d despised the idea of people hurting their own children. But their knowledge about General Hux had always been pretty limited, and this was more information about his personal life than she’d ever known. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was telling her as a means of manipulating her. 

 

To push him a bit, she asked, “Whatever happened to your father?” She knew the man was dead, they’d received intelligence that he’d been infected by something during an on-planet mission, but she was curious to see what General Hux would say.

 

“Dead, I’m afraid,” Hux answered, and he and Captain Phasma snuck sly, sideways glances at each other. It was a happy kind of slyness, Leia thought, like two people sharing a pleasant secret. 

 

“His death was quite painful, unfortunately,” Captain Phasma said, voice expressionless. “On-planet missions can be quite dangerous.”

 

“And your mother?” Leia asked.

 

Hux arched an eyebrow at her. “How should I know?”

 

“So, what, you just _lost track_ of your own mother after your dad’s funeral?” Poe asked.

 

“After my…” Hux began, looking confused, then stiffened as if he’d had a current run through him and glared at Poe. “My father’s wife was _not_ my mother,” he said, so venemously that Poe leaned back in his chair and put his hands up in surrender.

 

“Was your mother Arkanin?” Leia asked, keeping her tone one of polite interest. 

 

“How did you know?”

 

“You have the look,” Leia said, gesturing with her hand to indicate her own face and hair. “That coloring was common on Arkanis.”

 

Captain Phasma, Leia noticed, was looking between her and General Hux with interest. Apparently, this wasn’t something the General talked about often. 

 

And, indeed, his next words were sullen, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to be in this conversation anymore. “She was. She worked in the kitchens. And I didn’t _lose track_ of her,” Hux said, in Poe’s direction. “My father took custody of me when I was five. If I’d tried to find her, he would have killed her, he made that very clear.”

 

“But after he died…” Rey began.

 

Hux rolled his eyes and addressed his answer to Leia. “She was Arkanin. Where the hell would I have looked?” Leia nodded solemnly, conceding the point. “Besides,” Hux continued, sounding uncomfortable, “I’m more my father’s son than hers, at this point. It’s been twenty-nine years. I’m sure wherever she is, she’s well over it by now. We should go, Phasma.” He stood abruptly. Phasma did the same and followed him to the door.

 

She could say nothing, Leia knew. It would probably be for the best if she did. But…

 

“General Hux,” she called to him, and he stopped in the doorway. “If I may?”

 

He looked back at her, nodded hesitantly. 

 

“I can assure you, General, that she never got over it.”

 

He turned his face away again quickly and left the room. Phasma glanced back at Leia, sizing her up, it seemed, then followed. 

 

Leia sighed. Poe looked at her. “Do you think any of that was true?” he asked.

 

“I’m pretty sure all of it was,” Leia said, wearily. “I doubt he would have made something up that painted him as anything other than the perfect Imperial scion.”

 

“What did he mean?” Rose asked. “That he wouldn’t have known where to look because his mother was Arkanin? Shouldn’t he just go to Arkanis?”

 

“Arkanis is empty,” Poe said. 

 

“Now I have an excuse to tell you a less pleasant story,” Leia said, and looked up at the ceiling. “It really was chaos, those first few years after the Emperor’s death. We were trying to keep the peace in a power vacuum while trying to set up a new Republic _while_ trying to fight off the remnants of the Empire, which were everywhere and scattered under half a hundred claimants to the Emperor’s throne. It was a mess. Most of us were kids, kids who’d watched our parents die in the war, and we were angry and scared and uncertain. We made mistakes. Arkanis was one of them. The Empire had a base there, and it was well-constructed and difficult to attack. But they were evacuating it, trying to consolidate their forces closer to the edge of the galaxy. They had begun displacing the population off-planet, we knew, but we didn’t understand the scale of it. We thought all we had to do was wait. We deemed the movement of the population a necessary risk. We thought we could always find them and help them go back.” Leia sighed. “When the Imperial forces were completely evacuated, and we tried to enter the planet’s atmosphere, we realized that they’d displaced the _entire_ population and detonated radiation mines to keep us from establishing our own base there. The planet was completely uninhabitable. The Empire hadn’t thought it was worth it to re-home the Arkanins. They’d just been sent out in ships and told to make their own way. We made an announcement that we would help Arkanins resettle on other planets, but only a few ever came forward. The rest just… dispersed. The galaxy is massive. Without any records, they essentially vanished. No one knows where they are or what happened to them.”

 

Everyone was silent after that, until Finn said, “But that was the Empire’s fault. They did that.”

 

Leia nodded. “Yes, it was the Empire’s fault. It was their action. But we cut a lot of corners in those early days of the Republic, we rushed through a lot of things. We wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, without thinking about the terms on which it ended. We wanted to be a true Galactic Republic, but that would have meant that the inhabitants of Arkanis were our citizens. The families who lost children to the Stormtrooper program were our citizens. We didn’t find a way to protect them.” She leaned forward, urgently, catching their eyes. “I want you to know about this, to think about it. Because the Second Republic had big dreams, but in the end it fell. The Third Republic has to learn from its mistakes and do better, if we win this war.” Leia shook her head. “We have to do better, this time. Trust me, there is nothing more painful than watching your children inherit a war you thought you’d already won.”

 

***

 

Rey found Leia, a little later, on the observation deck, looking out at the stars. She sat beside her, and they watched quietly together for a while as the points of white light drifted by outside.

 

Finally, Rey asked, “Did Luke…?”

 

“Come see me?” Leia responded. “He did.”

 

“Good,” Rey said. She was curious what they’d talked about, these two siblings who’d borne so much of the weight of the galaxy, but she would never ask. “If he’d come to talk to us and not you, I was going to be angry at him.”

 

Leia shook her head. “He thought _I’d_ be angry at him. I wasn’t, though. He was angry enough at himself. And we all made mistakes.”

 

“Leia, are you… Are you Force-sensitive?” Rey asked.

 

Leia turned and smiled at her. “Of course I am. I was never as powerful as Luke, but I had my own way of understanding the Force. Of having it in my life.”

 

“But you just… Don’t use it?”

 

Leia laughed. “That’s like saying I don’t use my legs because I’m not running marathons. I use the Force, how could I not? It’s part of the way I look out at the world. I’m not cutting myself off from it, like Luke did. There’s more than one way to use the Force. I’m just not a Jedi.”

 

“Did you ever think of becoming one?” Rey asked.

 

“What’s with all the questions?” Leia asked, cocking her head.

 

“I just…” Rey sighed. “I’m trying to figure out my path. My way forward. It feels as if I only discovered this power yesterday, but now I’m a Jedi and I have students and I’m carrying the weight of this tradition. And no one’s yet been able to tell me what I’m meant to do with it.”

 

“That’s because no one can,” Leia said. “It’s something you have to decide for yourself.” She put a hand on Rey’s shoulder and gave her a sympathetic smile. “In answer to your question, I did think about becoming a Jedi. About what it would mean for me. Luke asked me, you know. But it wasn’t the right path for me.”

 

“How did you know?”

 

“It wasn’t _me_. I’ve always felt drawn to seeing things in terms of politics and diplomacy. I’m good at it, and it’s how I thought I could make the galaxy better. I was ready to lay down my weapons and work through the Republic. And there were things about the Jedi that I didn’t agree with.”

 

“What things?”

 

“The attachments. Or lack thereof. I didn’t think it was right. I tried to convince Luke to stay in the capital, build his school there, and make sure that the Jedi were a _part_ of society. People have light and dark sides _because_ of their attachments, and I thought that the Jedi wouldn’t be able to achieve any kind of balance if they cut themselves off from the way people actually are. Luke didn’t agree.” Leia sighed and rested her head in one hand. “When I felt Ben’s ability, I wanted to wait until he was grown up to offer him the choice. Until he could think it through for himself.”

 

“Poe said he was eleven…” Rey trailed off.

 

“It was earlier than I wanted. So much earlier than I wanted. Han wasn’t happy about it either. But… I’d felt his anger, his secretiveness and fear. I couldn’t understand what was happening, and I was concerned. And then one day he… He was playing with another Senator’s son, a boy he didn’t really like very much. They’d started shouting at each other, and I was about to intervene when… All the turmoil I had felt in Ben just shut off. As if he was thinking completely clearly. And before I could do anything to stop him, he reached out with the Force, no expression, no words, and snapped the boy’s arm.”

 

“Oh,” Rey said softly, sadly. 

 

“I had to admit to myself that there was something going on that was beyond my ability to fix. I didn’t realize the extent of it, yet. Sometimes it makes me sick, so sick, to think that Snoke was already there, in my home, my family, and I hadn’t been able to keep him out. But I thought Luke could help, could make things right. I don’t think…” Leia ducked her head to hide the wetness in her eyes. “I don’t think I ever managed to convince Ben that I was afraid _for_ him, not _of_ him.” 

 

“I’m sorry, Leia,” Rey said. 

 

Leia shook her head quickly. “I love my son. I don’t think I’ll ever stop going over what happened, then and after, second-guessing and wondering what I could have done differently. But that’s all in the past now.” She smiled at Rey. “We can’t change it, but we can keep writing the story. The next chapter of the Force is going to be written by you. You and Finn.”

 

***

 

“It’s hard to imagine Ren as a child,” Phasma said, when they were back in her room, sitting with their backs against the edge of the bed. “Playing and doing stupid things because he was dared to and just… being ordinary.”

 

Hux stared mournfully at his empty hands, wishing he still had some of the dumpling. “We were all children once,” he said. “It would probably have been better for me if I’d sprung into being fully formed and armed, but that wasn’t in the cards. What the hell do you think General Organa put in those things to make them so…” He trailed off, not quite sure how to adequately describe it. 

 

“Plants, actually,” Phasma said, her face brightening. “I’ve made a whole list of plants that I’ve heard can be used in cooking, but I haven’t had a chance to try any yet. Some plants have good-tasting leaves, and others have seeds or bulbs that can flavor things. Someday…” She didn’t finish the thought.

 

Hux frowned. “That sounds like an easy way to be poisoned, just cavalierly eating parts of plants.”

 

“That’s why you learn which plants are edible and which aren’t,” Phasma replied patiently. “It isn’t random chance, you know.” 

 

“I suppose,” he said. He wanted to stay a little dubious, but he knew it was foolish to doubt anything Phasma said on that particular subject.

 

“I remember playing,” Phasma said, abruptly. “A bit, I mean. Not everything, of course, my memory was… blurred. But I remember there were fields around my house that I could run in and make up games.”

 

She sounded happy at the thought, which was the only reason Hux gave a response. He didn’t usually like to think about those sorts of things. His childhood was gone; it was pointless to lament it. But he said, because he thought it would make her happy, “There was a big open space behind the kitchens at the Imperial station. Some of it was taken up by the kitchen garden, and we weren’t allowed in there, but there were places we could play. We usually, ironically, pretended to be Imperial soldiers.” He shook his head with a grim laugh. 

 

“We?” she asked.

 

“There were quite a few kitchen workers, and many of them had children. We’d have mud wars, usually, since it rained so often. We’d come back covered in mud, and our parents would make us stand in a line so they could spray us with a hose before they’d let us come back inside. My mother would pretend to be stern about it, but would always end up laughing.”

 

He fell silent. Sometimes his memories of his mother were clear as day, and sometimes they seemed as though he’d dreamed them. He carefully pushed them away to the corner of his mind where he kept all the old hurts that he couldn’t correct. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Phasma said. “That you never got to see her again.”

 

“I’m sorry, too,” he answered. “That you had to leave your parents.”

 

“I don’t remember them very well,” she said. He wondered if she felt that made her separation from her family easier or harder. She had been so insistent that he discontinue administering new Stormtrooper recruits the memory-modifying drug. He tried to imagine what it would feel like to have had his memories of his mother blurred away. 

 

_I would be better off_ , was his first thought. But then again, maybe that wasn’t the case.

 

“Armitage,” she said, turning toward him suddenly, “do you… Do you want to come in?” She tapped her temple. 

 

“Are you sure?” he asked hesitantly. “You don’t need to help me train my abilities anymore.”

 

“I’m sure,” she said, smiling. He focused on her, and discovered that he didn’t even need to close his eyes or concentrate particularly hard. His work with Rey and Finn had made finding other minds easier, and besides, her mind was the brightest, most familiar thing in the room. Possibly in the galaxy. 

 

He didn’t push too far, just skimmed gently around the outside of her consciousness, a pressureless connection. “Does it still feel strange?” he asked. 

 

She shook her head. “Not so much, now. I’m used to you.” She put her head back against the bed, relaxing. He found himself doing the same, the steady movement of her thoughts lulling him as he circled her mind like a ship in low orbit. 

 

“Please let me know if I cause you any discomfort,” he murmured. 

 

“Of course,” she said, then laughed. “If you accidentally kill me with the Force, you can inherit my wonderful armor. Although it might not fit you very well.”

 

He laughed, too, even though the thought of hurting her made his stomach twist. He let his eyes slide shut.

 

One of her thoughts was close to him, catching his attention, as if it was drawn to him. He brushed against it and was enveloped by warmth, a glow of respect and pride and occasional indulgent exasperation, a sense of finally being allowed to relax and _trust_. He was startled when he realized that the thought was about _him_. She trusted him. He knew Phasma made him feel safer, but he’d never imagined that the feeling could be so reciprocal. After all, he wasn’t particularly good in a fight. For all he saw himself as fighting for the security of the galaxy, he had never thought he was someone who could make another person feel safe. 

 

Their hands were resting just beside each other on the floor. All he’d have to do would be to move his fingers a little ways, and he could be tangling them with hers. 

 

An alert from his datapad seemed to break some kind of spell that had fallen over both of them. They both blinked and sat up straighter, and Hux extricated himself carefully from her mind.

 

He opened the message on his datapad and made a sound of mingled dismay, disgust, and frustration. “He’s back,” he said, shaking his head angrily and handing Phasma the datapad so she could read for herself. “He slipped the damn net.”

 

“Urgent message to all First Order troops,” Phasma read. “Former General Armitage Hux and former Captain Phasma have committed treason against the First Order and have been stripped of their ranks and rights. They are to be killed on sight, and any unreported contact with them will be treated as a capital offense. Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.” She looked up at him. “He didn’t mention the assassination attempt.”

 

“Worried about looking weak, I assume,” Hux answered. “There’s something else he didn’t do.”

 

Phasma actually smirked at that. “He didn’t say we were dead.”

 

“I wonder if it even crossed his mind,” Hux said, exasperated. “Or if he just can’t be bothered to do the strategically sensible thing.”

 

“It’s good for us,” Phasma said. “It splits the loyalties of the troops and weakens Ren’s position.”

 

“Good for us, but bad for the First Order,” Hux said, glaring at the datapad as if it had personally offended him. “A drawn-out power struggle was exactly what I was trying to avoid.”

 

“Armitage,” Phasma said, suddenly urgent. “Was this broadcast on an open channel? Will the Resistance have received it?”

 

“No, it went out on one of the Order’s encrypted channels. They may be able to intercept and decipher it, but it will take time. I got it through my backdoor into the intelligence systems. But…” He trailed off, realizing what she was getting at. 

 

“He wouldn’t have sent this unless he felt he was safe,” Phasma said. “Unless he’d escaped danger and was back with the First Order.”

 

“Which means this mission has failed,” Hux said. “And this alliance has run its course. We have to get off this ship.”

 

Phasma was up off the ground before he’d finished speaking, pulling her armor on with quick, practiced movements, swinging her cape over the top of it and fastening it around her neck. Hux stumbled up after her and retrieved his boots, coat, and gloves. 

 

They moved carefully through the corridors to the hangar, only relaxing slightly when their ship, apparently un-tampered-with, came into view. “Get in,” Hux said, “I’ll open the outer bay doors. We’ll only have a minute or so…”

 

“What are you doing?” Rey’s voice asked behind him. Hux whirled to face her, and tensed when he saw that she was accompanied by Finn, Rose, and Poe. 

 

“What are _you_ doing?” was his slightly less than brilliant response. 

 

“We felt you get stressed out about something,” Finn said. “Just faintly. I guess it’s a good time to tell you that the link we made for training takes a little while to dissolve completely, if you’re used to getting information through it.” 

 

Hux felt a stab of anger at the thought that they’d been spying on him, but before he could answer, Poe asked, “Why are you leaving? What’s changed all of a sudden?”

 

“Ren has sent orders to the entire First Order that Phasma and I are traitors,” Hux said evenly. “We believe this indicates that he is back aboard a First Order ship. The mission has failed, and there is no more need for this alliance. I would advise that you let us leave, or this may become an unpleasant situation for all of us.”

 

Phasma stepped forward, positioning herself so that it would take only a quick side-step to step in front of Hux. She rested her hand on her blaster. The tension in the hangar bay was a nearly palpable thing. 

 

“I’ve rigged the ship up,” Rose said. “If you fire that, this bay will be sealed off and a stun grenade will go off.”

 

“This blaster isn’t the only weapon I have on me,” Phasma answered, perfectly calmly.

 

“Okay,” Finn said, raising his hands in front of him in a calming gesture. “I think we should all just…”

 

He was cut off by small, cobbled-together machine strapped to Rose’s belt, which suddenly lit up and began beeping. Everyone jumped and grew, somehow, even more tense. 

 

“What is that?” Rey asked.

 

“It’s the alert I set up to let me know if we came in range of one of the targets.”

 

“Ren’s escape pod?” Hux asked sharply. 

 

Rose shook her head, her eyes widening. “No, the attack ship. And the rescue ship. They’re both in orbit around a planet less than six lightyears from here.”

 

Hux felt as thought everyone in the hangar sprang into motion at the same time. “There’s still _some_ information to be gleaned from this debacle,” he shouted over his shoulder, half at Phasma and half at the Resistance members, as he hit the switch to open the outer doors of the hangar. Phasma was already running up the hatch into their ship.

 

“Can you send me the coordinates?” he asked Rose. 

 

“To hell with that,” Rose said, determinedly, and ran up the hatch into his ship herself. Hux rolled his eyes and followed her.

 

It was only when he had settled into the pilot’s seat and was firing up the ship that he realized that Rey, Finn, and Poe had followed, as well. He looked at Phasma in the copilot’s seat, eyebrows raised. She just shrugged. Behind them, the four Resistance members threw themselves into the jump seats and pulled their harnesses on. 

 

“Fine,” Hux muttered, not wanting to waste any time getting them the hell off his ship. “Why not just throw a party.”

 

“I sent the coordinates to the ship’s navigation,” Rose said, clipping her sensor back into her belt. “You see them?”

 

“Got it,” Hux said, carefully maneuvering the ship out of the hangar bay and programming the hyperspace jump. 

 

The jump for such a short distance was only a few seconds, but he made sure the ship brought them out of it early, so they could see what they were approaching before they got too close. Slingshotting around the curve of the planet’s moon, they saw the two ships circling and dodging each other’s fire, low enough that they were fighting the planet’s gravity to stay in orbit. 

 

Hux brought up the weapons’ targeting systems, but before he could decide on his first target, the gray rescue ship made a wrong move and took one of the black attack ship’s shots to its propulsion system. Its engines stuttered, stopped, almost managed to fire again, then failed altogether, and the ship, too close to the planet’s gravity well to remain in orbit, started to slide toward the surface.

 

“The rescue ship is going down,” Hux said, in satisfaction. “The attack ship is ours.” He moved his hands over the controls, bringing the weapons around to bear on his target. The attack ship had noticed their presence, but it was too late. He had his sights locked…

 

He got a split second of warning as, with a spike of pain behind his eyes, something forced its way into his mind and

 

_His mind emptied out. Not just his mind: all of him. Empty and empty and hollow and hollow. It went on in all directions around him, nothing but emptiness, and him in the center, a shell ready to collapse into himself, alone._

 

_Somewhere far behind him, a chorus of voices was calling his father’s name, over and over, like some kind of horrible chant. Nearer at hand, he realized, was another voice, a more important voice, and it was saying his own name. But how was that possible? Who in this empty, hollow, lonely world could know that name and use it? There was no way to get to that voice, he was lost. Lost, lost, lost…_

 

“Armitage! Snap out of it!”

 

And he did, sliding sideways back into his sense of himself with a jolt. He blinked and saw that Phasma was fumbling at the straps securing her to her seat, trying to get to him. The Resistance members were shouting, clamoring all around him. The incoming ordnance alert was flashing on his control panel and he didn’t have time to — _BOOM_.

 

The controls jumped in his hands, and they immediately started descending. The engines had been hit; one was offline, and the other was still firing, but intermittently and weakly. They didn’t have the lift to escape the planet’s gravity. 

 

“Pull up!” Poe was shouting in his ear. “Pull up!” 

 

“I’m trying!” Hux shouted back, straining against the controls and trying to keep his grip as they bucked with each current of air they passed through. “We’re losing the second engine!”

 

They were over forest, now, picking up speed as they came down between the tree-lined walls of a valley. Hux spotted a clearing and tried to angle them toward it, but it wasn’t big enough to act as a landing (crashing) strip. This was going to be unpleasant. 

 

“Make sure you’re strapped in!” he called over his shoulder. “Unless you have a death wish.” He turned his head to make sure that Phasma hadn’t managed to get out of her harness. She pointed to her own buckle and nodded, which was a relief. 

 

A second later, they hit the ground, carving a path through the clearing, throwing chunks of grass and dirt over the hull of the ship and finally ending with a _crunch_ and a bone-rattling impact with a tree. 

 

Hux shook his head. He could already feel the bruises forming on his shoulders and waist, where the straps of his harness had caught him, but he could see straight and he didn’t think anything was broken. 

 

“Is anyone else alive?” Phasma’s voice came from beside him, and a chorus of groans answered her. 

 

He hit the button to open the hatch, and heard it open part of the way and then stick with a grinding sound. He released his harness, tried to stand, and immediately stumbled against the control panel. With alarm, he realized that he was desperately nauseous. 

 

He stumbled to the hatch, ducked through the narrow gap that was all that could be opened, and careened out into the open air, catching himself against the splintered remains of the tree they’d hit. He bent double and emptied his stomach onto its torn-up roots. 

 

“Armitage, are you alright?” He turned to see Phasma behind him, somehow managing to look perfectly steady on her feet. The Resistance members were tottering out of the ship behind her. 

 

“I… I think,” he stammered, not quite able to form words properly.

 

Poe looked back at the wreckage of the ship, then rounded on Hux, looking distraught. “You absolute _asshole_!” he yelled.

 

“Excuse me?” Hux yelled back, anger making words suddenly much easier to find.

 

“You crashed your own ship! Now I’ll never get to fly it!”

 

“What, you think you could have done better? We were shot down!”

 

“You’re damn right I could have done better, I…”

 

“Are you even capable of shutting up, you insufferable man!?” Hux cut him off at the top of his lungs. 

 

Phasma stepped between Hux and Poe, put a hand on each of their shoulders, and spun them so they were facing away from each other. “That’s quite enough of that,” she said firmly. 

 

“What happened, Hux?” Rey asked. 

 

He spun back around, his anger, if anything, growing hotter. “Someone _attacked_ me! With the fucking Force!” He forced down a renewed wave of nausea. His traitor mind had folded like… _A slip of paper_ , his father’s favorite insult echoed in his head. _As thin as a slip of paper and twice as useless_. “I hate the Force,” he muttered. 

 

“I felt it,” Finn said. “Coming from the attack ship. Someone on that ship was Force-sensitive.”

 

“And powerful,” Rey agreed. “What did it feel like?” she asked Hux. “What form did the attack take?”

 

“It felt like an attack,” he said, shying snippily away from the question.

 

Rey gave him a long look, but didn’t press the issue. 

 

Rose, who had been staring at the ship, cataloguing the damage, called, “This ship is a lost cause. It’s not going up again without some serious repairs that we don’t have the equipment to take care of.”

 

Rey looked the ship over and said, “Agreed.”

 

Hux scowled but couldn’t argue. The ship’s hull was crumpled, and one of the engines had a massive tear through the center of it. 

 

Finn had already taken out a communicator, but he shook his head as he looked at it. “I don’t know if it’s the terrain or something about the atmosphere, but I can’t get a signal out.”

 

They all looked up the steep walls of the valley. “We’ll have to get to higher ground,” Rey said. “Then we can call and have Chewie pick us up in the Falcon.”

 

Hux hated the fact that his only way off this planet relied on the Resistance, but he didn’t have any other options. Beside him, Phasma shrugged and moved back to the hatch. “Only plan we’ve got,” she said. “Let’s get what supplies we can off the ship.”

 

They all gathered around the hatch as Phasma passed down three canisters of field rations and two all-terrain tents, strapping their burdens to their backs.

 

“What the hell is that?” Finn asked as Phasma ducked back out of the hatch, a massive metal cylinder secured to her back by ropes lashed around her body. It was bigger around than she was, and stretched diagonally across her torso from the nape of her neck to her hip, but she didn’t stoop at all under its weight. 

 

“Is that…” Rose said, her eyes widening. “Is that an orbital cannon?”

 

“We told you we had one at our first meeting,” Phasma said, shrugging.

 

“And you just brought it with you?” Poe asked.

 

“Of course we did,” Hux said. “It’s a valuable piece of weaponry, we weren’t just going to leave it floating there.”

 

“You never know when you might need a very big blaster,” Phasma said, reasonably. “Shall we?”


	8. Into the Wild Blue Yonder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains discussion of past child abuse. 
> 
> This chapter is so long. I've been trying to trim these chapters down, but it hasn't been working well for me. My SO has been teasing me and calling me "Tolstoy," but since I haven't had a chapter-long digression about the best way to manage your peasants (space peasants?), I'm still doing better than actual Tolstoy. In this latest installment of trying to sneak references to Old Norse into the galaxy far far away, "Hvalveg" is, if I'm remembering correctly, "whale road" or "whale way," which is a poetic way to refer to the sea.

They’d only been walking for an hour, and Phasma could already tell that Armitage was tired. She’d dropped her pace slightly, bringing up the rear, because she knew that he was going to stubbornly match her no matter how fast she was going, staring moodily at the ground to avoid tripping over anything. 

 

She made sure to watch him out of the corner of her eye, just in case he stumbled, just in case anything else happened, but she couldn’t help enjoying herself, despite the danger they were probably in. An unknown planet, about which they had insufficient information, with one potential enemy crashed somewhere, perhaps nearby, and another in orbit, and yet she felt lighter and freer than she had in months. She liked planets in general, and forest planets in particular. She couldn’t resist looking around, cataloguing everything she saw.

 

“Armitage, look!” she said in a low voice, reaching out toward him. He immediately stopped in his tracks and put his hand on his blaster, and relaxed only slightly when he saw that she was pointing at a group of small mammals, round and gray and about the size of the palm of her hand. They were perched along a tree branch, watching them solemnly. 

 

“What are those?” Armitage asked her. 

 

“I have no idea. There must be quite a few of them, though. I’ve been seeing leaves on many of the plants that I thought had been eaten. My first thought was insects, but maybe its those things.”

 

Armitage nodded as if she was saying something important, rather than distracting herself from potential enemies, which she appreciated.

 

Rey, at the head of the column, set a pace that even Phasma could feel. As they went along, Armitage got more and more quiet, and more and more pale, and Phasma dropped her pace slower and slower, drawing farther and farther away from the Resistance members. She was wondering if she could say something, request a break, when Rose piped up, looking embarrassed, “Guys, could we stop for a second? I’m sorry, I’m just not used to walking so much.”

 

“Oh, thank you!” Poe said, stopping in his tracks and heaving an enormous sigh. “I’m way better at sprinting, I swear. I need to sit down.”

 

“Of course!” Rey said, stopping immediately. “I’m sorry, Rose, Poe, I didn’t even think about it.”

 

Armitage dropped into a sitting position with an uncoordinated thump. Phasma sat down next to him, stretching her legs out and reclining back against the orbital cannon on her back. “Drink something,” she said, in a tone that would brook no argument.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Finn making for a thicket of plants with whip-thin stems and broad leaves that grew together in threes. They looked like a soft place to sit down. 

 

“Don’t touch those,” Phasma said, perhaps more forcefully than she should have considering he was no longer under her command. 

 

He turned and looked at her in confusion. “What?”

 

“Don’t touch those plants,” Phasma said. 

 

“Why?”

 

“I’ve seen probably thirty or so clumps of them. They’re the only plant I’ve noticed whose leaves haven’t been chewed by the wildlife. I don’t know if they’re poisonous on contact or only if you eat them, but I wouldn’t risk it if I were you.”

 

Finn looked dubious. “You seriously noticed that? Just… while we were walking, you were looking at the plants?”

 

“She does that often,” Armitage said seriously. “I’d listen to her, if I were you. She’s an expert.”

 

Phasma felt her face get hot, and she leaned back and stretched happily, just barely keeping from grinning. She was on solid ground, there were growing things all around her, the sun was shining, and Armitage thought she was an expert. It was turning into a bit of a good day for her, despite having been in a ship crash. 

 

With one more glance at the thicket, Finn shrugged and sat down on a rock instead. 

 

“How much further are we going to go today?” Poe asked.

 

Rey looked appraisingly up the slope, then at the position of the sun. “I doubt we’ll make it out of the valley before the sun goes down. We should walk for another one, maybe two hours, then keep our eyes open for a relatively flat place we can set up the tents.”

 

“Agreed,” Phasma said, looking closely at two trees growing beside each other and trying to figure out if they were the same species. 

 

“Wait, I’m sorry, can I ask something?” Rose asked. After a second, Phasma realized that the girl had been addressing her, so she nodded, confused. “Why do you know that? Why are you an expert? It just seems like such random knowledge to have.”

 

Phasma laughed. “Observation,” she said, in answer. “I’ve always been interested, so I just… observed, when I was on planets. Took notes. Made myself an encyclopedia, in my file.” At Rose’s blank look, Phasma clarified, “The one data file that I was allowed to save?” She nodded to Finn. The other Resistance fighters turned to look at him. 

 

Finn cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah, well, all the Stormtroopers were allowed to have one data file that they could edit and write stuff in and save. Most people used it as a journal.”

 

“Did you have one?” Poe asked.

 

“Was it a journal?” Rose asked. 

 

Finn ducked his head and shrugged his shoulders. “Um… No, it was… It was kind of ridiculous, but when I was on planets, I’d write, you know… poems, about what I saw. The landscapes.”

 

The exclamations of excitement from Rose, Poe, and Rey completely drowned out Armitage’s derisive snort of laughter. Phasma raised an eyebrow at him and poked him in the shoulder. He looked at her, confused, and she leaned in to whisper to him, “No, none of that. Those files were always important. To us.” Armitage looked abashed.

 

“You have to show us some of your poems!” Poe was saying.

 

“You’d… You’d really want to read them?” Finn asked. 

 

“Of course!”

 

“Well, okay, I guess. I mean, I don’t have any of the old ones, I didn’t bring my datapad with me, but maybe if I… If I write any more, I’ll show them to you.” He tried to shrug again, casually, but couldn’t keep from grinning. 

 

Phasma shook her head with a slight smile and got to her feet. “Important,” she repeated softly to Armitage as she helped him up.

 

***

 

By the time they found a place to stop for the night, Hux felt like every muscle in his body had been run through an industrial washing machine and twisted to wring out the water. He didn’t think he’d ever spent so much time walking, certainly not carrying a canister of rations on his back. It was a struggle not to throw himself down on the ground when the group had agreed that the little, flat open space was the best place to settle in. 

 

He tried to force himself to his feet when Phasma pulled the first of the tents free and started setting it up, but she put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down. “It’s meant to be set up by one person,” she told him. “Another person would just complicate things.” He knew damn well that that wasn’t true, that two people were optimal for setting up field tents, but he was too exhausted to argue with her, and he appreciated the gesture. 

 

When the tents was set up, he crawled in and laid his coat down on the ground, curling up on top of it and shivering without it on his shoulders. Phasma was right behind him, piling her armor up in one corner of the tent and lying down on her cape. They pressed their backs together, and Hux immediately felt exactly as warm as he needed to be.

 

“These tents aren’t terribly big,” Phasma grumbled. Glancing over his shoulder, Hux could see that both the top of her head and her feet brushed the walls.

 

He smiled. “I hope our Resistance colleagues don’t mind getting close to each other. They must be packed in like crates in a full cargo ship.”

 

“Somehow I don’t think that will be a problem for them,” Phasma said dryly. Neither of them mentioned the fact that, small as the tent was, they had left quite a bit of room empty on either side of them. Hux certainly had no desire to put any distance between himself and Phasma. 

 

“Armitage,” Phasma asked after a moment, her voice suddenly serious. “Are you really alright? What… What happened with the Force attack?”

 

“I’m, yes, I am alright, I promise,” Hux said, stumbling over the words. “It’s so stupid that it affected me as much as it did, it didn’t even hurt. It only… It only made me feel as if I was alone. It shouldn’t have upset me, it took all of a moment to realize that I was actually in the ship with you. It just… For a moment, I thought I was the only thing alive in the universe.”

 

His heart jumped when he realized that she’d reached backward and taken hold of his hand. The positioning of their hands was uncomfortable, their wrists bent strangely and the bones of their forearms pressing together almost painfully, but he found his fingers tightening on hers almost without his volition. She squeezed his hand, and he struggled to understand what in all this could have possibly induced his pulse to start pounding. He didn’t feel panicked at all. 

 

“You aren’t, though,” Phasma said, softly. “You aren’t alone.”

 

He had to swallow several times before he could choke out the words, “Thank you. Neither are you.”

 

***

 

Phasma woke the next morning feeling almost astonishingly well-rested. She’d lost her grip on Armitage’s hand sometime during the night, but she could still feel the rise and fall of his breathing against her. She stretched, pushing against the inadequately wide-apart tent walls, and sat up carefully, trying not to disturb him. 

 

She glanced down at him, and her vision seemed to suddenly get caught. She often woke before him (for all his nervous energy when awake, he slept like the dead), but other than the terrible moments, or possibly hours, when he had been unconscious in the medbay, she had tried to avoid looking too carefully at him. She had thought it would be disrespectful to stare while he was asleep. 

 

Now, though, in the light of the morning filtering through the fabric of the tent, glancing turned into staring without her permission. She felt a bizarre swooping feeling in her stomach and chest, and her heart picked up speed as if she was facing some unknown danger. He looked the same in some ways, brow furrowed as if even in sleep he was trying to puzzle out some delicate problem of military administration, but the way he curled in on himself, the dishevelment of his hair, seemed so strange and alien. She wanted to lean toward him and press her face into his hair, despite the fact that she couldn’t understand what giving in to the impulse would actually accomplish. She wanted… She _needed_ to get the hell out of the tent before she did something stupid.  

 

She stumbled out, zipping it again behind her so that the cold air wouldn’t get in to where Armitage was lying in just his uniform shirt. She blinked around in the increasing dawn light. The only other person awake, it seemed, was Finn. He was sitting on the grass, brewing coffee out of one of the field kits in the ration canisters. For a moment she considered that he might want her to keep her distance, but then she shrugged and walked over to him. That grass looked like the best place to sit. 

 

“I hope this isn’t poisonous,” Finn said as she sat down near him. She snorted a laugh and shook her head. “Do you want some coffee?” he asked. 

 

She got one of the lidded coffee cups from the canister and filled it, then secured the lid and set it aside. “I never developed a taste for it,” she said. “If I need to be more alert than normal, I prefer a stimulant injection.”

 

Finn took a sip of his own coffee and closed his eyes in enjoyment. “Yeah, Rey doesn’t like it either. Says it tastes disgusting. But, I don’t know, the taste kind of just reminds me of Poe and Rose. They drink a lot of it. So it’s just a… comfortable taste.”

 

“That’s good,” Phasma said, smiling a little and tilting her face up toward the rising sun.

 

They sat in a silence that felt almost companionable for a long moment. Phasma could hear something small moving in the undergrowth, birds beginning to call, branches shifting in the breeze. She really did love forest planets. 

 

After a while, she cleared her throat and said, “Finn, I… What I said to you on the _Supremacy_. What I said about you when we fought. I shouldn’t have said it, and I’m sorry I did. It isn’t true. I can’t say that I understand what you’ve done, but I understand that it took courage. So. Yes,” she finished lamely. 

 

“I…” He trailed off, took a sip of his coffee, then started again. “Thank you. For saying that. What I said to you before, on the transport, about the way you follow orders… I shouldn’t have said that. It isn’t true, either. I don’t understand you, really I don’t, but I know you care about what you’re doing.”  

 

“Thank you,” Phasma said softly. They sat awkwardly together until Rose, Rey, and Poe emerged from their tent. Phasma carefully moved her lidded cup of coffee behind her where no one could see it as Rose and Poe descended on the brewing kit and emptied it into their own cups. 

 

She listened to them milling around her. When this ill-fated mission had started, even one of them being nearby had put her on edge, but she’d gotten accustomed to them. She didn’t even tense up when one of them was behind her, now. She would have to re-learn her wariness of them, when this was all over. The thought, oddly, made her feel a little sad. 

 

Finally, just when she was wondering if she’d have to go wake him, Armitage stumbled out of their tent, ineffectually trying to smooth his hair flat. She felt warm when she looked at him, and she couldn’t keep herself from smiling. He glared blearily down at the empty brewing kit and said in a voice of mingled anger and panic, “Is that all gone?”

 

Without a word, Phasma retrieved the cup from behind her, unscrewed the lid, and held it out to him. “You’ve saved my life,” he muttered. 

 

“You’re beating me on that score two to one,” she responded. “I’ll have to get you a lot of cups of coffee.”

 

***

 

They all wanted to get an early start, jumpy at being momentarily trapped on a strange planet, so they ate and broke down the camp as quickly as they could. 

 

As they were getting ready to go, Hux glanced across the flattened grass of the campsite and saw that Phasma was standing in a grove of trees, very still. Curious, he walked over to her. 

 

“What are you doing?” he asked, quietly, in case she had heard something suspicious. 

 

She looked around at him, smiling. “Just… listening. Sorry, I shouldn’t be getting distracted. I’ve always loved forest planets.”

 

Hux looked from side to side, at the chaotic undergrowth and the un-uniform trees and the dirt filled with potential pathogens and the sunlight whose brightness and heat couldn’t be controlled. He had no idea why she would find such a place so attractive or enjoyable, but he could appreciate that it made her happy, even if it all seemed a bit horrible to him. 

 

He looked in her direction again and found all of his thought processes grinding to a halt. He stared at her, his breath catching, suddenly absurdly aware of everything that he could see about her. She stood poised on the balls of her feet, her back straight and her face turned slightly skyward, her eyes half-closed, smiling slightly as if she enjoyed the sunlight. The light glanced off her hair, making it shine, and the scars on her face seemed to be a part of the shifting patterns of shadow made by the branches and the leaves.

 

He suddenly realized that, all this time, he had been seeing her in his own environment, in the corridors and chambers of ships, perfectly sterile and controlled, but that wasn’t where she belonged. She looked completely at home here. He was looking at her where she was most natural. Looking at her made his chest ache, for some reason, but he couldn’t look away. 

 

She looked at him, cocking her head slightly in confusion. “Armitage? Are you all right?”

 

He blinked, his brain seeming to restart. “Yes, I apologize. We should get ready to go.”

 

A few moments later, when they were all ready, their burdens strapped to their backs again, they headed out of the meadow and

 

_Hux stepped over the threshold of his little campsite and back onto the path upward out of the valley, and he felt absolutely content to walk alone, onward without stopping, up the valley slope, drifting lazily to the west. He was content, alone on his journey, as he had been for days, moving onward, and…_

 

“Phasma,” he said, suddenly. _He was content and without thought, alone and_ … He shook his head. “Phasma,” he said again, feeling as if he was waking up from sleep. That was the name of his ally, and he certainly shouldn’t be making this journey alone. 

 

He shook his head more violently, and his mind cleared abruptly. He grit his teeth in anger. It had been much less painful, this time, but he had no doubt that he had been attacked with the Force again. _Fucking Force-users_ , he thought furiously, then looked around and realized that he had bigger problems. Part of the illusion had been true: he was completely alone. Phasma and the Resistance members were nowhere to be seen.

 

“Phasma?” he called, then again, a little louder, “Phasma!” He listened, but there was no response, and he didn’t want to raise his voice any more. There was someone nearby who was Force-sensitive and powerful, and he wasn’t in a hurry to meet them.

 

But what were his options? The most sensible, he thought, would be to spiral out from his current position in an orderly fashion, the way they had been doing aboard the ship when they were looking for Ren. He nodded decisively and set off. 

 

The spiral ended up being a ragged thing, broken up by thorned bushes or particularly dense undergrowth or other things that he had to divert around. He stumbled on, getting tired and irritated and increasingly, nauseatingly worried. 

 

Finally, after what, by the passage of the sun, he thought had been an hour, he heard something moving. He stood, tense and listening, and finally decided it was a person of some kind. He drew his blaster and held it with his finger away from the trigger as he made his way toward the sound.

 

He was both relieved and disappointed when he caught sight of Poe walking at an unnaturally even pace, his face blank. Hux holstered his blaster again and approached him cautiously. 

 

“Dameron?” he asked. Poe made no response. “Dameron!” he said, louder. Nothing. He shoved Poe’s shoulder. Poe swayed on his feet but kept walking forward. 

 

Hux stopped walking after him and closed his eyes, reaching toward Poe’s mind with the Force. Something was covering his mind, something like a multi-layered film or a gauzy net, wrapped around and around Poe’s consciousness, gumming up its workings and slowing its motions.

 

Concentrating, he brushed against layer of the illusion-net, ignoring the second-hand _keep walking, content, alone_ that flashed through him when he did. Carefully, trying not to touch Poe himself, trying not to cause any damage, he tore through the film and pulled it away from Poe’s mind. It seemed to disintegrate as he did so. 

 

When Hux opened his eyes, Poe was standing still, looking around confused. “What… What the hell happened?” he asked. 

 

“I believe we may have been attacked again,” Hux answered. “By a Force-user. It split us up. You’re the first other person I’ve been able to find.”

 

“Shit,” Poe said, whirling around. “The others…”

 

Hux shrugged, tension and worry starting to make his head hurt. “I have no idea. I’ve been looking for them, and I suggest we continue to do so.”

 

“Yeah, we’ve got to…” Poe stopped, thinking. “Wait, it kept making me feel like I should go west.”

 

Hux raised his eyebrows. “I had the same experience.”

 

“Well, then, we should go west!” Poe said excitedly. “That must be where the Force-user is, whoever it was was leading us into a trap! We should go west and try to bring the fight to them!”

 

Hux frowned at him. “That’s absurd. If anything, we should be going east. Whatever that Force-user wants us to do, we should be doing the exact opposite. But what we really should be doing is a systematic search.” He explained to Poe how he had been circling the forest. 

 

Poe looked like he was still eager to run due west with his blaster drawn, but eventually he sighed and nodded. “Well,” he said, “I don’t really have a better idea, so let’s go with your plan.”

 

“I’m glad you’ve seen reason,” Hux said flatly, and Poe rolled his eyes at him. 

 

***

 

_Finn was content to walk, alone, up the slope of the valley, angling westward, on his own as he had been for days, and_

 

Wait. Something about that seemed strange.

 

_onward, content to keep moving_

 

He had been a Stormtrooper, sleeping in a dormitory, eating in a mess hall, packed shoulder to shoulder at all times with others. And now…

 

_forward, alone_

 

Now he was only alone if he wanted to be. Did he want to be?

 

Finn stumbled to a stop, shaking his head to clear it of the sleepy confusion that seemed to have suffused him. He looked around blearily, then realized that he was actually alone, and that he absolutely shouldn’t have been.

 

He spun in a circle, his heart pounding. “Rey?” he called. “Poe? Rose?” There was no answer. 

 

He scrubbed a hand over his hair, trying to calm himself down so he could think. They’d been led astray and separated by something that could only be the Force, but the Force was part of _him_ , too. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he reached out into the surrounding woods, carefully and slowly, in case there was an enemy looking for him. He didn’t find any of those beloved minds that he had become so familiar with, at least not close by. He could sense the link to Rey guiding him off into the distance, but nearer at hand, he did find a mind that he thought he recognized, driving steadily forward like a mining car on a track. 

 

He followed the feeling of that mind, and soon he caught sight of a flash of chrome silver armor. “Hey, Phasma!” he yelled. She didn’t slow, didn’t turn toward him. 

 

He reached for her mind with the Force and found it covered over, wrapped up tight in something clinging and filmy and almost sticky-seeming. He must have been able to break the Force illusion because he was Force-sensitive, but Phasma clearly needed some help with it. 

 

He grabbed hold of the illusion, shaking off its influence trying to reassert itself on him, and pulled it away as quickly as he could, trying to get every particle of it out of her mind. It melted away as soon as he did. 

 

Phasma stopped, shook her head, looked around in confusion. “What… What happened?” she asked, looking at Finn. Seeing no one else nearby, she spun in a circle, her eyes widening in alarm. “Armitage? Where is he, where is everyone else?”

 

“I don’t know yet,” Finn answered. “You’re the first one I found. We were trapped in some kind of Force illusion.”

 

“Can you contact them with the Force?” Phasma asked. “Rey and Armitage, I mean?”

 

“That was my next move,” he said, and concentrated. He woke up the bridge that Rey had built between them, so frequently used and so affectionately maintained that it sprang to life at a touch, blazing brightly all the way to Rey’s mind. Finn frowned as he saw that the end of the bridge was shadowed in filmy, web-like shadow. She was still in the illusion. 

 

He took hold of the illusion and pulled it away from her. _Rey_ , he thought in her direction. _Rey!_

 

***

 

_Rey was as she always had been, content to move, to wander, alone in this vast world, forest now rather than desert but everything as she was used to, and_

 

_Rey! Rey!_  

 

She stopped short, her mind clearing so suddenly that she rocked slightly on her feet. None of it had been real. She wasn’t wandering, she had a purpose, a mission, and she wasn’t alone, or at least she should’t be. Something had gone wrong. 

 

_Finn_ , she thought back at him, less a name as a representation of him in her mind, warmth and comfort and safety. _Where? Where?_

 

_I found Captain Phasma, but none of the others_ , came his thoughts, in words in her head. _Can you get a bridge open to Hux and see if he’s still in the illusion?_

 

She sent an affirmative feeling and reached to the remnants of the bridge she’d built to Hux during their training. It was in the process of collapsing, newer and more fragile than the one between her and Finn, but she coaxed it back to life and felt down it until she found his mind, free of the illusion and seemingly undamaged, crouching and coiling in on itself, wound tight like tension wire. 

 

She was about to send a thought his way when she heard a crunch and movement in a stand of trees nearby. She tensed. _Wait_ , she thought at Finn, then drew her lightsaber and crept closer, reaching carefully out with the Force as she went. As soon as she brushed against the mind, she recognized it and started pulling the threads of the illusion away from it. 

 

“Rose!” she shouted, running towards the trees. 

 

“What…?” Rose’s voice came back, sleepy and confused. “Rey?”

 

Rey was so happy to see Rose safe that she pulled her into her arms and kissed her, ruffling her little ponytail with one hand. Rose laughed, but sobered when she looked around and saw that they were alone. 

 

“We were separated,” Rey explained. “Someone used the Force to trick us. But don’t worry, I know where Finn is. Now we just have to find Poe. Hang on a moment…” She shut her eyes and reached down the bridge. She wasn’t used to communicating with Hux this way, so she made her greeting as attention-grabbing as possible, just in case. The startled, panicky response that echoed back up the bridge made her think she might have overdone it. 

 

She wished she was as good as Finn at transmitting sentences. _Fine_ , she thought at him. _Fine, it’s fine_. 

 

_Phasma?_ was his answer, barreling up the bridge at her with the weight of emotion and worry behind it.

 

_Fine_ , she thought again. _With Finn. Poe?_

 

_Fine. With me._

 

She sighed in relief and sent that information to Finn, then repeated it out loud to Rose. Then she concentrated very hard and tried to figure out how to do something complicated. 

 

_Wait_ , she thought at Finn and Hux simultaneously. _Wait. Trying something_. 

 

There were still little shreds of the Force illusion lingering around her mind and Rose’s, and she grasped hold of them. Stilling all the other movements of her mind, she focused on the shreds, observing them until she found the trace of where they had come from. As unobtrusively as she could, she followed the traces backward, backward, backward, until she found their source. 

 

And then, suddenly, she realized that she had been observed. _I know who you are_ , came a thought that was not hers.

 

She rocketed back into her own mind and opened her eyes with a gasp. _I think I know who_ _you are, too_ , the thought to herself. “The rescue ship,” she said out loud to Rose. “It’s crashed to the east of here, and that’s where the Force illusion came from.”

 

At the same time, she thought along the bridges, _Rescue ship. Force user. There_ , and she thought in the right direction. _Knows I’m here_ , she added, a bit chagrined.

 

_Information_ , Hux thought back immediately. 

 

_The Force user was trying to drive us to the west_ , Finn thought. _Driving us away, not luring us in. Afraid of us?_

 

“We should go that way!” Rose said, throwing her hand out to point east. “We can capture them and finally get some answers!”

 

Hux insistently thought a strange image of three lines converging on a blinking point at her. It took her a second to realize what he was suggesting, but when she did, she imagined dropping the blinking point a little ways away from where she had sensed the ship, then tugged along both the bridges, mimicking drawing both consciousnesses toward her. She imagined the tug as a machine, making the same movement over and over, and the Force sensed her intention and made the tug repeat steadily. 

 

Finn and Hux both thought a feeling of agreement at her, and she opened her eyes to look at Rose. “We’re all going to start heading east on converging paths. I’ve made it so we’ll all be drawn to each other. When we meet up, we can decide how to come at the ship. But they know we’re here and might expect an attack, so we should be careful.”

 

Rose grinned at her. “I’m traveling with a Jedi. I feel pretty safe already.”

 

***

 

They’d only been spiraling for a few minutes, both of them stoically avoiding talking to each other, when Hux stopped short, eyes widening. Poe stopped, too, and looked at him. Hux wrinkled his nose, screwed his eyes shut, and shook his head, muttering, “Odd sensation.”

 

“What happened?” Poe asked. 

 

“Rey just found us,” Hux answered, and tapped a finger to his temple. 

 

“She’s okay? Does she know where Finn and Rose are?”

 

“She’s fine, Rose is with her, and she’s in contact with Finn, who has Captain Phasma with him and is thus safer than any of the rest of us.” Hux breathed out a sigh that Poe thought might have been relief. He could sympathize. 

 

“What are they…” he started, but Hux held up a hand with a pained expression.

 

“Do you mind?” he said shortly. “I can’t concentrate on both conversations at once.” He shut his eyes and frowned. 

 

Whatever conversation the Force users were having seemed to Poe to take forever. He shifted impatiently, waiting for the verdict. 

 

Finally, Hux nodded and stood up straight, arms behind his back, looking like he was about to give a speech. 

 

“Right, here it is,” he said, and explained the plan to Poe. 

 

Poe was almost as relieved to have a plan more definite than “just walk around” as he was to know the others were safe. Almost. “Well, let’s go, then!” he said. “Lead the way, radar!”

 

Hux glared at him, then closed his eyes again. “Just a moment,” he said, “I just need to do one more thing…”

 

Whatever it was he was doing this time, it seemed to be more difficult and tiring. Hux clenched his hands into fists at his sides and ground his teeth. For a long moment, he didn’t do anything else, but then the corner of his mouth twitched up into a smile and he slumped a bit as the tension went out of him. 

 

“Well, then, follow me,” he said, with obvious relish, and Poe rolled his eyes. 

 

“I’m only following you because you’ve got the map.”

 

“Of course.”

 

Poe waited for him to say something else, and, when he didn’t, decided it was probably best that neither of them talk for the entire journey. It would keep them from getting on each other’s nerves and possibly getting into a fist fight. 

 

Fifteen minutes after that, to break the silence, he asked, “So how long have you and Captain Phasma known each other?”

 

Hux gave him a suspicious look and answered, “Eight years. Why?”

 

“No reason,” Poe said with a shrug, “you just seem to worry about each other a lot, is all.”

 

“Well, we are allies,” Hux said, as if it was the most logical thing in the world. “An alliance makes both parties safer, so it is in our interests to protect each other.”

 

Poe laughed. “I think the word you’re looking for is friends,” he said. 

 

To his surprise, Hux whirled on him, glaring. “I don’t like what you’re implying,” he said, icily. 

 

“What?” Poe asked, completely bewildered.

 

“I know what it looks like when a commanding officer has _friends_ , I’ve seen it far too many times, and I can assure you that Captain Phasma has not achieved her rank through any unwarranted favoritism on my part. Everything she has, she has earned.”

 

“That’s not what I m… You know what, never mind,” Poe said in irritation. “All you First Order people are too damn strange.”

 

Hux rolled his eyes. “Pot, kettle,” he said, shoving a branch out of his way with a bit more force than was necessary. 

 

“What, you think we’re strange?” Poe asked. “Why?”

 

“Do you want the entire list of reasons?” Hux asked. “We can start with the fact that you have no clear chain of command, and you all rush into action without orders from the one person who seems to have an actual rank.”

 

Poe was stung by the truth of that: he probably should have talked to Leia before running off onto a First Order ship and ending up on this planet. He tried not to think of the other, far more catastrophic disobedience in his recent past. Instead, he said, “Well, excuse us for not having, you know, a whole set of axioms to tell us how to fight. We’ve kind of been focusing on just surviving.” He winced; he shouldn’t have said that. Although, by this point, there was no way that Hux didn’t know just how weakened the Resistance had become after Crait. 

 

Hux raised an eyebrow at him. “You know about the axioms?”

 

“Phasma told us one,” Poe said. Hux stopped in his tracks and glared at Poe until Poe sighed exaggeratedly and said, “ _Captain_ Phasma told us one. Thirteen, I think. It was pretty horrible.”

 

Hux started walking again. “War is war,” he said, off-handedly. 

 

“So, is there an Axiom One?” Poe asked after a while, when the silence between them had gotten annoying again. “Is it the most important one?”

 

“Of course there is, and of course it is,” Hux said. Poe opened his mouth to ask the reasonable follow-up, but Hux gave a put-upon sigh and said, “‘There is no morality in war. The only good is victory, and any action is justifiable in service of that good.’”

 

Poe frowned, but knew it wouldn’t do any good to argue the point. “You just know that one off the top of your head?” he asked, a little wryly. 

 

“I know all of them off the top of my head,” Hux said. “My father insisted I memorize the entire book before being sent to the Military Academy.”

 

“So you were, what, eighteen?”

 

Hux actually laughed at that. “What?” he asked, in disbelief. “Are you joking? Bloody hell, if that was the Republic’s policy, no wonder they were reluctant to meet us in the field. It would be impossible to construct a functioning military under those conditions.” At Poe’s bewildered look, he clarified, “By the time I was eighteen, I’d been a commissioned Lieutenant for a year. I was sent to the Military Academy when I was twelve.”

 

Poe remembered Hux telling them that his father had beaten him bloody after his graduation; he mentally aged him down in his mind. It hadn’t been a young man’s act of rebellion, it had been a teenage boy’s. He would have been about the same age as Poe had been when his parents had died and Leia had taken him in. 

 

Those years had been hard for both of them. Poe had been hurt and angry, and had stayed out late almost every night, knowing that Leia would stay up waiting for him and worrying. It had been almost a compulsion, demanding that _someone_ worry about him, the only way he could think of to make her prove that she cared about him. When he came home and saw her waiting, he’d be seized with guilt and try to pick a fight with her to make it go away. He’d said terrible things, including some things about Ben that he’d regretted as soon as they were out of his mouth, but she’d never lost her temper. She’d only ever spoken calmly to him, reassured him that she loved him, that he wasn’t alone even though he’d lost the two most important people in his life. Every time, he’d promised himself that he’d do better, stop hurting her, but it had taken him years to actually follow through on this promise. And in all that time, she’d never lashed back at him, certainly never hit him. 

 

“Were all the students at the Academy children of former Imperial officers?” Poe asked. 

 

“Of course,” Hux said. “Or most of them, at any rate. We were all being prepared to follow in our parents footsteps.”

 

Poe had the sudden, disorienting feeling that he’d been fighting ghosts for years, that the people who had built the First Order and its cruelty were long gone and had left behind only their children, trapped in a self-sustaining machine like rocks in a polisher, being tumbled and struck until they were unrecognizable. 

 

But that wasn’t entirely true, was it? They weren’t completely trapped. Finn had been a part of that machine, and he had gotten out. 

 

Poe wondered if Hux had ever considered defecting to the Republic. It was a long shot, but he’d opened his mouth to ask the question when he heard something that caught his attention, a whooshing whining off in the trees. Hux stopped walking with a flinch; he must have heard it, too. 

 

Poe drew his blaster just in time: a moment later, six round, floating black battle droids zoomed out of the trees, blinking red lights at each other and fanning out around them. As Poe watched, spindly arms unfolded from their sides. At the tip of each arm was a blaster.

 

“Don’t let them surround us!” Hux shouted, his own blaster in his hand. He fired off two shots in quick succession. One hit the left-most droid, which exploded internally and crashed into an enormous rock nearby. The other hit the right-most droid, which wavered but kept coming. 

 

By unspoken agreement, they stood back-to-back. The droids were armored, but they had weak points, and Hux took one out with a pin-point accurate shot, while Poe destroyed another by spraying quick blaster fire until he got a lucky hit in. But they were outnumbered and couldn’t get to cover in time, and there were three more preparing to fire. 

 

_This is it_ , Poe thought. Time seemed to slow as he turned to the next droid in the line, not quick enough. _Sorry Finn, Rey, Rose_. 

 

He heard a shout behind him, then something slammed him to the ground, and his vision was obscured by gray stone. He heard the sound of blasters firing, but no pain of impact, then the stone soared away from him and he heard a crunch of metal. 

 

Poe blinked, trying to figure out what had happened. There was another body on top of him. He rolled and grabbed Hux by the shoulders, pushing him off him, but gently. Hux was white-faced and trembling slightly. The big rock, which had been at least thirty yards away, was now directly in front of them, pinning three crushed battle droids.

 

“I did that,” Hux said, sounding disbelieving and a little awestruck. “It was like a reflex. I’ve never moved something that big. I just… reached out, and it happened.”

 

“Well, good work,” Poe said, getting to his feet and offering Hux a hand up. “And, you know, thanks. For saving my life. Can you tell if there are any other battle droids around?”

 

Hux closed his eyes, swaying slightly on his feet, then shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

 

“Can you tell the others? Warn Finn and Rey?”

 

Hux nodded. “It’s done, I think. I hope. I’m not entirely sure how these bridges work. But I still have the pull toward Rey, so she must still be alive.”

 

“That’s something,” Poe said. “Guess we’ve just gotta keep going.”

 

***

 

Finn’s brow was furrowed, staring off into space as he communed with the other Force users. Phasma stood quietly, letting him concentrate. After a short while, Finn blinked and came back to himself, then turned to Phasma and explained what they were doing. 

 

“Good,” Phasma said. “I’m rather tired of being manipulated by Force users. Let’s bring the fight to them.”

 

Finn shook his head. “It’s weird to be thinking the same thing as you.”

 

Something brushed against the outside of Phasma’s mind, and she had a brief second of panic, thinking the illusion was back, before she realized that she knew this gentle touch very well. The touch didn’t try to move any deeper into her mind, just hovered around the edge and transmitted an apologetic feeling, and Phasma realized that Armitage was feeling guilty and irritated at himself because he hadn’t even thought to use the Force to try to find her. She laughed aloud and tried to think affectionately at him. 

 

“What?” Finn asked. 

 

“Armitage,” Phasma replied, grinning at him. “General Hux,” she amended, remembering propriety. She cleared her throat and gestured vaguely eastward. “Lead on.”

 

Finn kept shooting glances at her as they walked. She figured that he was just suspicious and uncomfortable being alone with her. After all, the fact that they’d shared some kind of moment this morning didn’t change the fact that they were enemies. She didn’t realize that his looks were mostly from curiosity until he saw her staring at a tree as they walked past it and asked, “So, are you just… noticing things about the trees and plants and things, right now?”

 

She shrugged, a little confused. “Yes? It’s somewhat automatic. I’ve been doing it for years.”

 

“What are you noticing?”

 

“Well,” she pointed at the tree, “you see the vine spiraling around the trunk of that tree? The one with the dark leaves? I believe it’s parasitic.”

 

She pronounced the scientific term slowly, with satisfaction. She hadn’t known it until a few years earlier, when she’d been using roundabout analogies to explain her observations to Armitage and he had sent her a data file of botany and ecology vocabulary. She’d read and reread it so many times that she practically had it memorized. 

 

They continued like that, Phasma pointing to things growing around them and explaining what she noticed about them. It made the time seem to pass more quickly, and the heavy orbital cannon on her back seem less burdensome. She was pointing out a tree trunk where two different kinds of moss were sprouting very closely together when Finn stumbled to a stop with a gasp of breath. 

 

“What? What is it?” Phasma said, instantly on her guard, hand on her blaster. 

 

“A warning,” Finn said, “through the Force. Something’s…”

 

She heard a whine approaching through the trees and sprang toward it, blaster in hand. Finn ignited his lightsaber behind her, and then six floating battle droids that she recognized as First Order prototypes came soaring into view, unfolding their gun arms. 

 

“Get behind me!” Finn shouted, jumping forward just as the first wave of blaster fire came their way. He swung his lightsaber in blurred green arcs, too fast for the eye to follow, intercepting each bolt in turn and bouncing them away. Two of the ricochets rebounded on their firers, knocking them out of the air and causing them to smash and explode on the ground. Another redirected bolt hit a tree and sliced through its trunk, knocking it to lean at an angle against its neighbor. 

 

Phasma was already in motion, firing at a third droid and taking it out before a shot from a fourth sent her blaster spinning out of her hand, smoking and melting. Finn leaped into the air and sliced the droid neatly in half with his lightsaber. Phasma ran up the trunk of the half-fallen tree, pulling the orbital cannon off her back as she went. Before the remaining droids could turn toward her, she pushed off the top of the tree and swung the cannon like a club, crumpling one and sending it flying into the other. They both crashed to the ground. 

 

Phasma and Finn stood panting and looking around for a long moment, waiting to see if any more enemies would appear. When they didn’t, Finn put out his lightsaber and slipped it back into his belt, and Phasma dropped the cannon. 

 

“Well fought, Finn,” she said, smiling broadly.

 

“Thanks,” he said with a laugh. “You too.”

 

“Your lightsaber is green,” she pointed out. 

 

“Yeah, it is. That’s the color that the khyber crystal it’s made with is, so…”

 

“I like it. Green is a good color.”

 

Finn smiled hesitantly back at her. “The others seem to be okay. I can still feel where Rey is, so we’d better get going.”

 

She nodded, but when she took a step, she was suddenly pulled backward. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that one of the final two droids had hold of her cape and was holding her in place as it tried to aim its damaged gun arm. She reached to her throat and undid the cape’s clasp, then dove forward and rolled with a yell. Finn was there a second later, stabbing the droid with his lightsaber.

 

“Okay,” he said, “I’m pretty sure that was the last one.”

 

Phasma didn’t answer, too busy looking in dismay at the tattered ruin, tangled in the droid’s internal machinery, that was all that was left of her cape. With a wild cry, she jumped on the droid and punched it with her armored fist, crunching the metal and causing sparks to fly from the severed wires. 

 

“What are you doing?” Finn asked, alarmed.

 

“Getting what’s mine back!” she shouted. 

 

“What… the cape? Are you serious?”

 

“Yes! It’s _mine_!” She pulled at the fabric, gritting her teeth when she pulled a bit too hard and tore it even more. “It’s the first thing I ever asked for,” she said, not looking at Finn. “It’s the first thing I really asked Armitage for. Not something that I suggested would be good for the First Order, just something for me.”

 

Finn sighed and crouched beside her, helping to pull away the twisted metal so she could carefully extract the pitiful, ragged-edged strips of red and black. She gathered up everything that was more than just threads, and folded the remains gently into the empty holster of her ruined blaster. 

 

Finn turned away from her and pointed over his shoulder at the back of his jacket. An enormous tear had been sewn up with heavy thread, somewhat clumsily. “Poe gave me this jacket. It used to be his. It got cut by Ren when I was fighting him on Starkiller, and Poe sewed it back together while I was unconscious. I was really happy to see it again, so… yeah.” He trailed off awkwardly, but Phasma was grateful, anyway. 

 

***

 

Rose and Rey were deep into a conversation about the relative merits of the Hvalveg Model 10 hyperdrive and its Model 9 predecessor when Rey stopped, eyes widening. 

 

“What is it?” Rose asked. She looked around nervously. 

 

“A warning,” Rey answered. “Something’s coming.”

 

Rose had already crouched down and pulled her toolkit off her belt, flipping it open as Rey drew and ignited her lightsaber. “Hear that?” Rey asked.

 

Rose cocked her head and picked up on the whirring whine coming from just ahead of them. “Battle droids,” she said. 

 

“Stay behind me,” Rey said urgently. 

 

“No need,” Rose said, feeling her hand close around what she’d been looking for. “Put out your lightsaber.”

 

“Rose…”

 

“Trust me! And duck!” Rey glanced at her once, but put out the lightsaber and threw herself to the forest floor as the six battle droids zoomed around the trunk of a tree and into view. Rose held out a small handheld device that looked like it had been constructed from scavenged parts from three other machines (it had been), pressed the button to activate it, and swept it across the line of battle droids. The droids stopped, hung in the air for a moment, then fell to the ground in a clanking heap. Four of them promptly exploded. 

 

“What was that?” Rey asked, sitting up.

 

“My old mentor’s idea,” Rose said. “The woman who taught me how to work on engines. I’ve been trying to fix it, you know, in her honor. I didn’t want your lightsaber to get caught in the crossfire because, well, I still haven’t gotten it to work right. A lot of the time it makes things explode. But hey,” she said, brightening, “four out of six blowing up isn’t so bad!”

 

“When this is all over, and I don’t have to concentrate so much on Jedi things,” Rey said, getting to her feet and brushing leaf litter off her clothes, “you and I are going to barricade ourselves in a workshop and just build things for a month.”

 

Rose tugged her arm to get her in range of a kiss on the cheek. “Sounds perfect,” she said. “For now, you can help me open up one of the survivors.” She gestured to the two remaining droids.

 

“We should get moving. We need to meet up with the others,” Rey said, but Rose could see that she was already edging toward the droids. 

 

“It won’t take us long,” Rose said, pulling out a screwdriver and a wire cutter. “We’re just going to scavenge it for parts. These have to be First Order tech, like the ship. It would be good to see what we’re up against.”

 

Rey grinned. “I can’t argue with that.”

 

Rose popped open a panel on the outside of the droid and peered in. She frowned, confused. “This droid doesn’t have a control computer,” she said.

 

“That’s strange,” Rey said, reaching into the innards of the machine. “There’s just this.” She pulled out a metal box covered in blinking lights and leaned in to look at it. Suddenly, she froze, her whole body tensing, and a second later, she gasped and dropped the box, reeling backward. The droid gave a feeble twitch, its moving parts grinding.

 

“What happened? Are you okay?” Rose asked. 

 

“I’m fine,” Rey said. “It’s controlled with the Force. It was like… like a tractor beam, or a magnet, it just reached out for me and pulled my mind in.”

 

“So…” Rose looked around at the wreckage. “These weren’t just deployed, they were actively controlled by that Force-user? The entire time?”

 

“They launched simultaneous attacks on all of us,” Rey said, sounding shaken. “They must be so powerful.”

 

“Or just have a lot of practice,” Rose said. “You’re powerful, too, Rey.” Rose reached down and snipped the wires holding the box into its housing inside the droid. “I am taking this with me, though, this is amazing.”

 

“To actually control a machine that complicated,” Rey said, shaking her head. “I didn’t even know that was possible. I wonder… I wonder if the Force-user can pilot their ship with the Force? Without using the controls at all.”

 

“Maybe we can ask them,” Rose said, standing up and kicking the empty droid shell. “When we see them.”

 

The reminder that there was a powerful, unknown Force-user at the end of this road sobered both of them. When they resumed their journey, Rose was tense, ready to put her hand on her blaster at a moment’s notice, and Rey was looking around her carefully, the way, Rose thought, she must have scanned the desert on Jakku for danger.

 

But the next things they encountered were familiar people. The guiding lures that Rey had set up through the Force had brought them all together at the same time, in a small clearing carpeted in grass and moss. Rose could hardly keep herself from shouting in joy and relief as she and Rey grabbed Finn and Poe by the shoulders and pulled them in to a chaotic and slightly bruising hug. Hux and Phasma did not hug, but put their hands on each other’s shoulders, murmuring reassurances to each other too softly for Rose to hear. 

 

“How are we going to approach this enemy ship?” Phasma asked, finally, when Rose and Rey and Finn and Poe were at last able to loosen their grips on each other. 

 

Rey shook her head. “It’s no use trying to be subtle. They know we’re coming.”

 

“Then we just walk straight up to the ship,” Poe said. “Heads held high. Psych them out.”

 

“Although it pains me to agree with you,” Hux said, “that does seem to be the best course of action.”

 

“Heads held high,” Rey repeated, took a deep breath, put her hand on the hilt of her lightsaber, and smiled. “Follow me.”

 

They were all silent, now, as Rey led them toward where she could feel the downed ship. When it finally came into their view, nose crumpled into the dirt but still looking predatory and imposing, Rose felt her heart thumping so hard it was almost painful. 

 

“I know what I’m doing,” Rey said, motioning them to stay and taking a step forward. “I think.” She cleared her throat, squared her shoulders, and said, in a loud, carrying voice, “I know you are a Knight of Ren. My name is Rey, and I am a Jedi. You are outnumbered. Surrender.”

 

There was a long pause. Rose held her breath, and thought that Finn and Poe, standing on either side of her, were doing the same. 

 

Finally, some kind of intercom in the hull of the gray ship crackled to life, and a deep woman’s voice, cool and calm and slightly amused, said, “Jedi Knight Rey. I’m so glad to meet you in person.”


	9. Heartache to Heartache We Stand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter discusses past child abuse and sexual assault. 
> 
> I named the Knights of Ren (with the exception of Kylo, of course) after stars. For the people discussed in this chapter, Zosma is the proper name of Delta Leonis (in the constellation Leo), Errai is the proper name of Gamma Cephei Aa (in the constellation Cepheus), and Vega is the proper name of Alpha Lyrae (in the constellation Lyra).

The sound of that voice sent what felt like a collective shudder through all of them. On the other side of that intercom was a Knight of Ren with completely unknown powers and goals.

 

Rey struggled to keep herself standing still, her face calm. Even though she’d suspected what she’d find when she made it to the wrecked ship, she still had to clench her hands into fists to stop them trembling. _You can hold your own against Lord Ren himself_ , she reminded herself. _And you didn’t come alone, this time_. 

 

“Are you alone on your ship?” she asked, holding her head high and making sure to stand so that the lightsaber on her belt was visible from the ship. 

 

There was a longer pause this time. Finally, with a pop, the intercom came back and the voice said, “There are two of us aboard. My name is Zosma Ren. I am traveling with my comrade in arms, Errai Ren. I have a proposition for you, Jedi Knight Rey.”

 

Rey raised an eyebrow. “Just Rey is fine, Zosma Ren. I’m willing to hear you out.”

 

“Understood. Well, here it is: If you agree to my proposition, in exactly two minutes, the hatch of this ship will open, and Errai and I will walk down it, having fitted ourselves with handcuffs. We will throw you our lightsabers and our masks and surrender ourselves into your custody.”

 

Rey blinked in complete surprise. “I…” She cleared her throat. “What would you want in return?”

 

“I assume you have some plan for getting off this planet?” Rey nodded. Zosma Ren continued, “As it happens, Errai and I have undertaken a mission, one necessitated by _your_ elimination of our former Supreme Leader.” The stress Zosma Ren laid on the word “your” made Rey think that she probably either knew or suspected the truth of Snoke’s death. “In return for our peaceful surrender, I would like your word that you will take us with you when you leave, and that you will give serious consideration to assisting us in the completion of our mission.”

 

Rey glanced back at the others. None of them looked ready to raise any objection. Even Hux shrugged as if to point out that they seemed to have nothing to lose from the offer. 

 

Rey turned back to the ship. “Fine. We accept.”

 

“Exactly two minutes,” Zosma Ren repeated, and the intercom switched off with a crackle and fizz. 

 

Rey waited, feeling a crawling feeling moving up her spine, mingled anticipation and fear. Finally, after what seemed like far longer than two minutes, the hatch groaned into life and began to lower. She had been paying such close attention to the ship that the sudden sound and motion made her jump. 

 

Two figures strode down out of the ship, cloaked and helmeted in black. They were of a similar height, somewhat average, not as tall as Kylo Ren but certainly taller than Rey. The one in front stood straight and walked with measured, even steps, while the one behind hunched their shoulders and stalked as if angry. Both had their hands cuffed in front of them, just as Zosma Ren had promised. 

 

The figure in front slowly raised their bound hands to their head and, with a pneumatic hiss, unclasped the helmet and pulled it off. Underneath was a woman somewhere around Poe and Kylo Ren’s age, with dark skin, a sharp-boned face, and short, curly black hair. Rey guessed that this was Zosma Ren.

 

Behind her, the other Knight removed their mask as well. Errai Ren was not that much older than Rey, perhaps around Finn and Rose’s age, pale and with unruly chin-length blonde hair that seemed to be getting in his eyes. He shook it back irritably and glared at Rey, and Rey had to carefully control her face to avoid reacting to his. It looked as if the bones of his face had had to be rebuilt. The left half of the jaw and the left cheekbone curved inward, leaving the left cheek looking like a caved-in divot. The left eye socket seemed to be pushing on its eye, which bulged and was completely white. It didn’t move at all when the right one did. Some impact, some terrible blow, must have broken part of his skull. That entire side was criss-crossed with thin white surgical scars. 

 

The two Knights of Ren tossed their helmets toward Rey, then Zosma did the same with her lightsaber. Errai hesitated. 

 

“Errai,” Zosma said, almost gently. 

 

Errai’s battered face twisted in anger. “I am a Knight of Ren. My weapon is a part of me, and I…”

 

“Snoke is dead, Errai,” Zosma said, cutting him off. “It’s a new galaxy without him in it. Let’s find our feet first, shall we, before we go picking fights.” Although she spoke to Errai, Zosma didn’t take her eyes away from Rey. Rey had little doubt that the two Knights could communicate through the Force without speaking aloud. Zosma wanted Rey to hear, to understand the situation as Zosma saw it. 

 

Rey nodded at her. Errai waited a moment longer, then drew his lightsaber from his belt and tossed it to lie beside Zosma’s. 

 

Rey stepped forward to pick up the sabers and helmets. Zosma, unexpectedly, sat down on the ground. Errai looked at her in surprise. 

 

“Well,” Zosma said with a smile, “I may as well make myself comfortable while we wait for you to get us off this planet.”

 

***

 

Leia was so relieved, when they all stumbled off the Millennium Falcon and back onto the troop transport, that she almost forgot to be furious with them. She and Chewie had been able to track them to a system, but not to a planet, and had been combing over each planet in turn, trying to find them, when the faint signal had come in. Leia had been glad that only Chewie was around and she didn’t have to act dignified, because they’d both whooped and shouted loudly enough to rattle the buttons on the control panel.

 

Now, as Chewie led her friends off the ship and into the hangar bay, she tried to glare at them but found herself unable to, especially when Poe gave her a sheepish smile that she’d seen on his face a thousand times before. She was even a bit glad to see Hux and Phasma, or at least to see that they hadn’t murdered anyone.

 

 _Oh, all right, fine_ , she thought to herself, and dragged Poe, Rey, Rose, and Finn into a hug. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she said. “Don’t ever run off like that again without telling me where you’re going, but I’m glad you’re safe.”

 

“We, um…” Rey said, shifting awkwardly. “We have prisoners.”

 

Leia pushed her surprise away and smoothed the expression from her face. She had interrogated prisoners before, and she knew how to stay calm and serious and get what she needed. “Well,” she said. “I suppose we should ask them a few questions.”

 

The transport had a brig, and as Rey, Finn, Poe, Rose, Hux, and Phasma led the two prisoners, the two Knights of Ren, in that direction, Leia brought up the rear with Chewie at her side, examining them. 

 

Chewie nodded his head toward the others and gave a soft trill, a sound that indicated their youth overlaid with tones of exasperation. Leia smiled. “We were much more responsible at their age,” she said in an undertone to him, mischievously. Chewie gave her an unimpressed look.

 

The Knights of Ren were a puzzle, Leia thought as she looked at them. The younger one, Errai, hunched his shoulders and looked around him suspiciously, defiantly. His eyes never stopped moving. Zosma, on the other hand, walked straight-backed, eyes forward, face calm and almost looking bored. She would have to treat both of them carefully. Fear could make a person very dangerous, Leia knew, but so could a lack of fear. 

 

She saw with interest that something had also changed among her friends and their First Order allies. They still grouped together, Resistance on one side and First Order on the other, letting there be space between them. But some discomfort had eased, slightly. They weren’t making any effort to avoid each other’s eyes or to stare each other down. Leia watched them, and considered. 

 

They found a guard room that they could use for the questioning, with a table in its center, and Leia took a seat and politely asked the Knights of Ren to take the chairs opposite her. Zosma sunk into her chair immediately, graceful despite the bound hands. Errai glanced around as if looking for some escape route, and only sat when Zosma looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. He slumped sullenly in his chair. The others arrayed themselves behind Leia, a united front against the two Knights.

 

“So,” Leia began. “Zosma and Errai Ren. Rey tells me that you have a mission you would like us to consider taking on. Perhaps you could start by telling us what you were doing on Mustafar.”

 

Zosma’s eyes flicked toward Rey, then back to Leia. “Did Rey kill Supreme Leader Snoke?”

 

Leia considered refusing to answer, demanding instead that Zosma answer her questions first. But, instead, she simply said, “No. Kylo Ren did.”

 

Zosma nodded. “We all suspected that. To some degree or another.”

 

“We?”

 

“All of us Knights. Kylo told us that Rey had killed Snoke, but, you see, it is difficult to hide things in the bridges that Snoke set up between us. That was by design, he didn’t want us to hide things from him, but it also makes it hard to hide things from each other. We suspected what had really happened. And with our Lord of Ren… compromised, shall we say, one of us has decided that the time has come.”

 

“The time for what?” Leia asked, keeping her voice level.

 

“For power.”

 

“So there’s been a coup among the Knights of Ren. And you’ve stayed loyal? You are trying to protect Kylo Ren?”

 

Zosma laughed. Errai clenched his jaw and looked at the ground angrily. 

 

Zosma shook her head. “No. No, that is not it at all. I have nothing against Kylo Ren. I’m sure I wouldn’t find him any more disagreeable of a Supreme Leader than Snoke. I don’t wish any harm to him. He made me a promise, once, a long time ago, that he broke, and for a long time I was angry at him for that. I’ve forgiven him for that, by now. But that doesn’t mean I was protecting him.”

 

“Then what were you doing?” Leia asked. 

 

Zosma Ren put her hands on the table and leaned over them, frowning down at the table. Leia waited her out until she sat back and nodded sharply. “The pilot of the other ship. That was Vega Ren. She was the second of the Knights of Ren.”

 

“The second recruited?”

 

“The second in power. She was kept isolated. We were all kept isolated. From each other. But she… She was kept in readiness. Just in case. In case Kylo… strayed. Everyone knew it, including her. Including Kylo.”

 

Leia swallowed down the sick feeling that rolled through her at the thought of her son living so many years on the edge of a knife, waiting for and fearing the day that he let down his master and was thrown aside, replaced. She looked steadily at Zosma, waiting. 

 

“Vega has rebelled against Kylo. She wants to kill him and become Lord Ren. She has secured the allegiance of two Knights of Ren. With me, I have one.” Zosma gestured to Errai. “And three have decided to stay out of this fight and see where the final pieces fall. That accounts for all of us.”

 

“You still haven’t told us what your mission is. If it isn’t to protect Kylo.”

 

Errai looked from Zosma to Leia, but Zosma didn’t move her eyes at all, staring Leia down as if she had not a single fear in the world. 

 

“There is only one thing I want,” she said quietly, “and that is for Vega Ren to never become Lord Ren. If that means Kylo continues as he is, if it means that some other Knight assumes control, if it means that the Knights of Ren completely cease to exist, I don’t care. But Vega Ren must not become Lord Ren.”

 

“Why is that?”

 

Zosma’s expression didn’t change. “It would be very bad for me if she did.”

 

“So it’s a matter of self-interest? But you’re willing to risk your life for it?”

 

“Vega as Lord Ren is the worst thing that could happen to me,” Zosma said. “Even worse than death.”

 

Leia considered her for a second, then turned to Errai. He had been looking at Zosma with a worried expression since she had mentioned the Knights of Ren ceasing to exist. “And you?” Leia asked. “Would Vega as Lord Ren be the worst thing for you, as well?”

 

Errai shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I am a Knight of Ren. I will be loyal to any Lord Ren.”

 

“But?”

 

Errai looked to Zosma, but she didn’t give him any visible guidance. He hunched his shoulders and looked down at the table. “I will help Zosma.”

 

“Why?” Leia pressed.

 

“Because I have to,” Errai snapped. “I… There’s a debt, I owe.”

 

For a second, Zosma’s expression changed. There was a brief flash of something like pain, quickly smoothed over again. Leia frowned. To buy time to collect her thoughts for the next line of attack, she asked Errai, “You’re so loyal to the Knights of Ren, even after being so badly injured serving Snoke?”

 

Errai Ren actually laughed, startling Leia. “This?” he asked, gesturing to his face. “I didn’t earn this in the Supreme Leader’s service. You must have heard about how some backward people, out on the edge of the galaxy,” his voice turned hard and bitter, and his broken face twisted in anger, “reacted to Force-sensitive children? My parents tried to bar our door against our neighbors, so they died first. And then…” he hesitated, shot a sideways look at Zosma. “And then,” he repeated, a little softer, “then a Knight of Ren saved me. Offered me a better path, where my abilities would be appreciated and useful.” 

 

Again, Zosma’s face registered that flash of pain, mastered with more difficulty than before. She cleared her throat and smiled at Leia, a blank-eyed smile that seemed to have no emotion behind it. “So now you’ve heard our mission,” she said. “Your turn for a decision.”

 

Leia nodded sharply. “Yes, we’ve heard your mission. But why should we help you with it?”

 

Zosma cocked her head. “If I understand _your_ mission properly, you want to kill Kylo Ren. A _difficult_ mission, surely.” Leia felt a chill at the way Zosma emphasized that word. Hux and Phasma had proven that her relationship with Kylo Ren wasn’t common knowledge in the First Order, but she wondered if Zosma knew more. “You’re already disrupting the Knights of Ren. It doesn’t seem like much more of a disruption to deprive both of the Lordship than just one. Especially because, with Vega’s plans moving forward so quickly, they’re likely to be in the same place. A final confrontation between them is fast approaching. And I have information that you can use. Information about the strengths and weaknesses of all the Knights of Ren that you might encounter.”

 

Leia stood abruptly, nodding again. “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” she said. “I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve made a decision. Please, follow us.”

 

They led each of the Knights of Ren to their own cell, as far from each other as they could be on the transport (although no one had any illusions that physical distance would keep them from communicating).

 

As soon as they left the cell block, Leia could tell that everyone wanted to start talking at once. She could also tell, however, that they were all exhausted. She knew she was; all the worrying she’d been doing had taken it out of her. So she held up a hand to forestall the burst of debate before it could erupt. 

 

“We’re all tired, and we won’t be making our best decisions or doing our best analysis until we’ve rested.” She glared first at Poe, then at Hux, as each seemed about to argue with her. Both shut their mouth without saying anything. “We should take an eight-hour rest, then reconvene to discuss what we’ve learned.”

 

Rey caught her sleeve as she was turning away. “Leia,” she said, her face serious. “There’s one more question I want to ask Zosma Ren. May I?”

 

Leia looked at her in surprise. “What question?”

 

“Just… I want to ask her about a suspicion I have. I’m a Force-user, as well, there’s that thread connecting us. I think perhaps she’d be more likely to answer if it was just the two of us.” 

 

Leia thought for a moment, but she trusted Rey. “As long as you’re careful.” Rey nodded with a quick smile and turned back toward the cell block. 

 

As Leia set out toward the wing of bunks that the Resistance had claimed, she glanced down another corridor and saw Hux and Phasma talking about something that seemed, based on their faces and posture, to be of the utmost importance. She slowed her pace, curious in spite of herself. Hux was leaning in to say something to Phasma, his face worried and apprehensive but his hands out as if he was trying to be reassuring. The uncertainty on Phasma’s face was, slowly but surely, changing into amusement. 

 

Leia smiled and shook her head. They seemed to be always moving around each other like a tide-locked planet and moon, trying to keep a proper distance between them but unable to turn away from each other. Finally, with an almost shy smile, Phasma reached into the holster at her belt, which Leia noticed no longer contained a blaster, and pulled out what looked like a pile of cloth scraps. She pressed the scraps into Hux’s hands and folded his fingers around them, while he struggled to suppress the sudden bright smile that had broken out on his face. 

 

Leia walked a little quicker, turning a corner before they could look up and see her. The smile slipped from her face as. She thought of Hux and Phasma’s brittleness and their attempts to reach out for each other, and of Zosma and Errai and whatever strange and complicated web of feelings connected them, and of Finn slowly but surely building himself back up after everything he’d suffered. And she thought of her son, isolated and afraid and trying to hold his fear at bay with cruelty and rage.

 

Even if they won this war, Leia wondered, would they ever be able to put back together all the things, all the people and families and homes, that the First Order had broken?

 

***

 

The closer he got to the canteen, the more Poe realized how tired he really was. He almost regretted deciding to get a bite to eat instead of going straight to bed, but he’d wanted to stay awake until Rey was done with her one-on-one conversation with Zosma. Just in case. Despite his exhaustion, the thought of Rey in the cell block talking to a Knight of Ren on her own made him feel electrically anxious.

 

He sighed as he opened the refrigerator and looked around for the sugariest thing he could possibly consume. What he really wanted was one of the candy boxes that he’d used to get at a fancy shop near the old Senate building, but he’d settle for anything sweet enough to set his teeth on edge. 

 

Someone clearing their throat behind him made him whirl around, startled. He wasn’t exactly put at ease when he saw that he was alone in the canteen with Hux. “Fuck, you scared me,” he said, closing the door of the refrigerator and leaning against it. “Did you want something?”

 

“I wanted to ask…” Hux stopped, frowned, shifted uncomfortably. “That is… Phasma said that you sewed Finn’s jacket? The tear on the back?”

 

Whatever Poe had been expecting, that was not it. “Um… yes? I mean, yeah, I did.”

 

Hux nodded decisively. “Good. How?”

 

“What do you mean, how?”

 

“I mean, was there… Was there some kind of, I suppose, specialized equipment?”

 

“I, uh, I used a sewing kit. Is that what you mean?”

 

Hux nodded eagerly. “Yes! Do you still have it? May I use it? I only need it for a few hours.”

 

“O… kay. I guess so. Wait here, I’ll get it.” Poe pushed past him out into the corridor and headed toward his bunk room. 

 

Finn and Rose, despite also wanting to stay awake until Rey was finished, had apparently made the mistake of trusting the instinct to rest their eyes. They were fast asleep on the bed when he walked in, sprawled sideways together across the bed. He smiled fondly at them, and tried to be as quiet as possible as he rummaged through his bag. 

 

When he found what he wanted, he pulled it out and stared at it for a long moment. He held the box in both hands and brushed his fingers over the image of a smiling flower that the previous owner had painted on the lid. 

 

He sighed and shook his head, then took the box back with him to the canteen. “Alright, here it is,” he said, holding it out to Hux. 

 

Hux took the box and flipped open the lid, looking down at the hand-held sewing machine and the rows of spools of thread inside. 

 

Poe pointed toward the empty space on the back of the machine. “You plug the spool in there,” he said, then pointed to the mouth of the machine, “and feed the fabric through there while squeezing the trigger. It’s pretty straightforward. I used that thread,” he pointed to the heavy white thread, “it’s the strongest, but there are a lot of kinds in there. They all fit in the machine.”

 

Hux flipped the lid closed and tucked the box into one of the pockets of his ridiculous giant coat. He nodded sharply as if he’d just received orders. “Thank you.”

 

“Just…” Poe hesitated. “Just don’t break it. Please. I borrowed it from one of my pilots.”

 

Hux rolled his eyes. “I’ll make sure you can return it in one piece.”

 

“No, she… She was in the hangar, when you… We lost a lot of pilots.”

 

“I see. I… I will treat it with the utmost care.”

 

“Good. Good, thank you. Hey, what do you need it for, anyway?”

 

Hux straightened his back and glared at Poe suspiciously. “Things.”

 

Poe couldn’t help laughing. He wasn’t worried; Hux would have to be one hell of an engineer to create some kind of weapon out of a beginner sewing kit. “Fine, whatever. Have fun with things.” He clapped Hux on the shoulder and, ignoring the affronted sound and dagger glare that resulted, headed back to his bunk. 

 

He’d stay awake until Rey was done, he was sure of it. He was just going to rest his eyes.  

 

***

 

Rey slipped into Zosma’s cell and sat down against the wall opposite her. 

 

Zosma had been meditating, sitting just the way Rey had learned to from Luke, her back straight and legs crossed, hands resting in her lap. Rey mirrored her, waiting patiently for the Knight to finish what she was doing. Tentatively, Rey brushed along the outside of Zosma’s mind, not trying to hide what she was doing. 

 

Zosma redirected herself inward when she felt Rey’s attention, but a single word, one that was apparently echoing through Zosma’s consciousness, reached Rey. _Mihai_. Zosma didn’t say anything, just opened her eyes to look steadily at Rey, tilting her head a little to one side and smiling slightly. 

 

“I thought maybe I could ask you one last question, now that it’s just you and I,” she said. 

 

“Oh?” Zosma asked, arching an eyebrow. 

 

“Mm,” Rey assented. “What’s Mihai?”

 

Zosma rolled her eyes, somehow managing to make the gesture look dignified rather than petulant. “Surely that isn’t the question you came in here to ask.”

 

Rey shook her head. “No. Just curiosity. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want.”

 

Zosma shrugged. “It’s just a word to meditate on. I like having a… focal point, if you like. It helps steady me, still me. Snoke didn’t particularly like me using that word, kept me from using it for a long time. But, well,” she grinned, “Snoke is dead.”

 

“Why didn’t he like you using it?”

 

“It’s a word from… the person I was before. Before I was Zosma Ren.”

 

“Is it a name? The name of the place you’re from?”

 

Zosma hesitated, then said, slowly, “It is the name of my home. But come on, ask me the question you had in mind when you came in. Before I distracted you.”

 

Rey met her gaze and held it. “You were Luke’s student, weren’t you? With Ben Solo?”

 

Zosma’s face fell for a split second, before she was able to school it into calm again. “Ah. That. I should have known.”

 

“I thought Ben was the only one who survived. _Luke_ thought Ben was the only one who survived. But you were there, too, and you survived. That was the promise Ben made to you, wasn’t it? The one he broke. That you’d be better off with Snoke.”

 

Zosma shook her head, laughed grimly. “Seems as if you don’t need any information from me, after all.” Rey didn’t answer, and eventually, Zosma sighed. “There were three of us. Three of us who survived that night. Kylo, Vega, and I. The first Knights and their Lord.”

 

“What did Snoke offer you?” Rey asked. 

 

Zosma gave her a disbelieving look, her mouth open and her brows drawn together as if she couldn’t believe that Rey could be so hopelessly blind. “Survival. That’s what he offered us. We didn’t think we had anywhere else to go.” Zosma leaned back against the wall, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. 

 

When she spoke again, her voice was low, so quiet that Rey had to sit forward and strain to hear. “I didn’t want to be a Jedi. That was never my dream. My favorite of the Rebellion heroes was always Han Solo. I wanted to explore the fringes of the galaxy, see things no one else had ever seen. Luke was always kind to me, but his school was never going to feel like anything other than a prison to me.”

 

“Why did you go?” Rey asked. Zosma gave her an unimpressed look and raised one eyebrow. “You were forced to,” Rey followed up.

 

Zosma nodded. “My family didn’t hurt me. Not like Errai’s neighbors did. But when I was thirteen, when I started feeling the Force and using it, they made it very clear that I wasn’t going to be staying. If Luke Skywalker wanted to be isolated, away from society,” and Zosma’s voice became poisonous, her face twisting into a grimace, “well, then, that just meant that Force-users belonged far away. Vega and I didn’t have homes to go back to, and that night, we… We thought Luke was dead. That Kylo had killed him. Who was going to protect us? From everyone else? And then…” Zosma trailed off.

 

“What?”

 

“Well…” Zosma looked almost embarrassed. “Kylo said we’d been chosen. That Vega and I had been judged and had been deemed the only ones strong enough. To join Snoke, be Knights. Even if I could have evaded Kylo or fought him off, which I wasn’t sure I could do, he looked halfway to insane, that night, even then, where… Where would I have gone? Neither Vega nor I had anywhere else to go.”

 

 _Leia would have protected you_ , Rey thought, but she knew that Zosma and Vega, and Ben, too, would have found that hard to believe in that moment. Rey saw it, then, the terrible architecture Luke had described to her, the parents pushed, little by little, across the gap between being afraid for your children and being afraid of them, guided day by day into mistrust and anger. And the children left alone and friendless and ready to fall right into the power of a monster who only wanted to own them. 

 

“It isn’t as if I had any illusions,” Zosma said, as if reading Rey’s mind. “I knew we were nothing but Snoke’s pets. His captive killers. I just wanted to stay alive. Perhaps you think that’s selfish, but it is what it is. Although,” she smiled at Rey, “I’m certainly not sad that Snoke’s gone. Ending him certainly makes up for Kylo’s first broken promise.”

 

“You said that Snoke kept you isolated,” Rey said. “But you said that you knew the merits and abilities of the other Knights. And you convinced Errai to join you on this mission.”

 

Zosma snorted and shook her head. “On the contrary. I tried to convince Errai _not_ to join me on this mission. I failed utterly. But in answer to your question, Snoke was very thorough in his efforts to keep us… buffered. He linked us together so we could communicate with each other, but also so that he could monitor everything that happened between us. If two of us were ever going to be in one place in person, he watched those meetings carefully.”

 

“He didn’t want you to be close,” Rey said.

 

“Conflict of loyalty,” Zosma said dryly. 

 

“But?” Rey asked.

 

Zosma shrugged. “We are people, not machines. Our natures cannot be stamped out. Although I will not deny that it took work.”

 

“You cultivated those relationships?” Rey asked. “You found a way to go behind Snoke’s back, to make contact with other Knights of Ren?”

 

Zosma’s smile widened. “Snoke thought of himself as a teacher, and he had a failing that a lot of teachers have. He focused most of his attention on his best students. I have no doubt that…” She paused and shook her head, her voice catching for a moment. “I have no doubt that Vega and Kylo have been completely alone, except for Snoke, since the day we went over to his side. But for the rest of us, there was a little more leeway. If you were observant enough to find it.”

 

Rey thought about that for a while, then asked, “So what will you do? When you finish this mission?”

 

“Will I go back to being a Knight of Ren, do you mean?” Zosma asked.

 

“Or become Lord Ren?”

 

Zosma laughed. “Absolutely not.” She suddenly curled inward, elbows on her knees and head clutched in her hands. “I’m finished, Rey. I’m so, so tired. I would like Errai to survive this mission. If possible, I would also like to survive this mission. It is unlikely that every Knight of Ren will survive any of this, but I would like that, if it were possible. And if I do survive, I’ll… Well, perhaps I’ll finally get my chance to sail the fringes of the galaxy. Out of the way, far away from all this. Although, given the way things are going,” she held up her cuffed wrists, “I’ll probably end my days in a cell. Whether a Resistance cell or a First Order cell, I’m not sure yet.”

 

Rey didn’t have anything to say to that, so she stood and said, “Thank you for answering my questions.” Zosma nodded to her as she left the cell.

 

***

 

In their cobbled-together bed, after an extremely fun celebration of the fact that they’d survived a crash landing, an impromptu camping trip with two of the most dangerous officers of the First Order, and a confrontation with two Knights of Ren, Rose leaned back against a pillow and looked at the ceiling, sprawled out and catching her breath. Finn was on one side of her, stretched out with his head beside her leg, occasionally pressing a kiss to the outside of her thigh, and Poe was on the other, lying on his back with Rey’s head on his stomach, one hand carding through Rey’s hair and the other stroking over the knuckles of Rose’s fingers. 

 

She smiled happily. “My heroes,” she murmured, running her fingers over Finn’s hair. He’d decided, a couple weeks before, to start growing it out, even though it felt itchy and heavy because he wasn’t used to it. It was something visible that he could change to mark him out from who he had been as a Stormtrooper. The curls snagged at her fingers. 

 

“Mmm, yeah,” Poe said, stretching and kicking at the blankets. “Heroic efforts all around, that was amazing.”

 

Rose laughed and smacked his shoulder. “I’m serious, I…” She trailed off, looking at all of them. 

 

She let her fingers fall from Finn’s head to the start of the scar along his back, a relic of his lightsaber fight with Kylo Ren. It matched the puncture wound on his shoulder. He had scars littered across his body, old war wounds, and the years as a Stormtrooper had left behind nightmares that still troubled his sleep sometimes. 

 

The way Rey was stretched out on the bed, Rose could see the round, puckered scar on the left side of her back, just above her hip, the one that was matched by a twin scar on her stomach. She’d fallen while scavenging an old Imperial shipwreck and been impaled on a twisted metal spar. She’d had to haul herself off of it, crawl to her cut-rate medkit, and get wound glue onto both sides of it with her hands shaking from shock. She’d been thirteen. Rose knew that, even now, it made her uncomfortable not to know where they all were, just in case. She’d spent so much of her life alone.

 

Poe had fewer scars, mostly burns and welding scars on his hands, like Rose’s own. But she knew that he carried the weight of the Resistance on his shoulders, that underneath the smiles was the constantly churning worry and self-recrimination. That he expected the impossible of himself. 

 

She still wasn’t quite sure where she fit in with them, even after all these months. Sometimes she wasn’t quite sure she was on their level, in the hero department. But she wanted to be good to them, to be near them, to be worthy of them. 

 

“You guys really are… I mean, you really are my heroes. You’re amazing, and I…” she stuttered, and she felt like there was something else, that one missing piece, that she had to say. Even though it terrified her, and she hadn’t been able to say it any of the other times she’d felt it. “I… I love you. All of you. I love you so much.”

 

There was silence for a long moment, as the others stared up at her. She had just enough time to panic, to think that they weren’t at that point, that maybe the others didn’t feel the same way, that she’d just completely screwed everything up.

 

Then they were all moving and speaking at once, squeezing closer to her and talking over each other.

 

“Rose, I love you too…”

 

“I love all of you, too, so much…”

 

“I’m so glad we’re saying it, now, I’ve been wanting and wanting to…”

 

Rose found herself at the bottom of a pile of bodies and errant limbs, squished together in some semblance of a four-person hug. It was going to get very uncomfortable very quickly, but that was a problem for thirty-seconds-from-now Rose. She was going to enjoy the hell out of it first.

 

***

 

“It’s not that difficult,” Hux said to himself, out loud. “You’ve taken apart and put back together far more complicated machinery than this. You are fully capable of completing this task.”

 

He had, in fact, already taken apart and put back together the little hand-held sewing machine, just to make sure he was fully prepared to use it. He felt confident in his grasp of the technology, it was simply the more… artistic side of the endeavor that was concerning him. 

 

He held the sewing machine like a talisman and stared down at the scraps of heavy red and black fabric, trying to remember how to make an Arkanin knot. 

 

Technically, these knots were supposed to be tied, not sewn. Most of the servants and their children had had one or two, a relic of some superstition that said they were supposed to be lucky. He had a dim memory of watching his mother make one out of scraps cut from his outgrown infant clothes, carefully layering the pieces, folding them over each other, tying ends together here and there, and finally pulling two opposite strands until the whole design tightened in on itself and became an intricate, symmetrical knot. He had kept it under his pillow and had been given no time to retrieve it the day his father had taken him away. 

 

He certainly hadn’t learned from that one observation how to tie the thing together, and he had no faith in his ability to figure it out. Thus, the expedient of sewing it together, instead. 

 

Dubiously, he arranged the strips of cloth in a way that he thought looked right. “Fortune favors the bold,” he muttered to himself, and carefully inserted the first seam into the mouth of the sewing machine. 

 

When he finally concluded that it was as good as it was going to be, he was startled to discover that he’d been working for nearly two hours. He’d managed to stab himself in the finger with the needle three times, and his back and shoulders felt like they’d been wound into knots tighter than the one he’d sewn together, but he supposed he’d made something serviceable. 

 

He narrowed his eyes at the knot. It was a little bigger than a fist, made up of loops and arches around a central core where all the pieces came together. He thought he’d done well with the alternating colors, but it was lopsided and most of the seams were crooked. He frowned at it. He wished it looked better. He wished it looked like the one he’d once had. But this was the best he could do. 

 

He found himself, again, shifting his feet and tapping his fingers against his leg outside Phasma’s door, as nervous as he had been when he’d come with the next of kin forms. She’d trusted him with these pieces, and if she didn’t like what he’d done… Well, he’d feel terrible.

 

He took a deep breath and knocked. 

 

“Armitage?” she called. “You can come in, it’s not locked.”

 

He stepped into the room with his pulse pounding and shut the door behind him. 

 

“Where have you been?” she asked with a smile. “I thought of going to look for you, but I didn’t want to disturb you if you were scheming.”

 

“No, I wasn’t…” He shook his head. “I was making something for you.”

 

“For me?” she asked. Her voice was quiet, and he wasn’t sure he could read her expression. “What were you making?”

 

He swallowed and held out his hand to her, unfolding his fingers from their death-grip on the knot. “This. It’s… It’s something people used to make on Arkanis. Out of old cloth. I had one, for a while. It’s supposed to be tied, I had to sew it, I’m not good at… Well, they’re supposed to be good luck. Supposed to protect you. I thought, maybe, you’d like it.” He couldn’t seem to stop babbling like an idiot. She took a step toward him and gently took the knot out of his hand and laid it in her own, smoothing out the wrinkles. She stared hard at it, and Hux felt a sinking feeling. “It was just a thought, you don’t have to… I can take all the stitches out, if you prefer. There will be holes from the needle, but… I’m sorry, I just…”

 

“Armitage,” she said, cutting him off. She bit her lip, took a deep breath. Then, abruptly, she clutched the knot tightly between her hands and held it to her chest, her eyes closed. She seemed to be struggling to master her expression. “No one has made something for me like this in twenty-four years.”

 

“Is it alright?”

 

She laughed. “Alright? It’s perfect.”

 

He was so relieved that he laughed, too. “I’m glad. I’m… so glad.”

 

“This is one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me.”

 

He shook his head. “I’m not sure it’s a gesture of kindness so much as an acknowledgment of the fact that… that, well, I’d be completely lost without you. You’ve made my life worth surviving.”

 

“Armitage,” she said again, her voice rough. He glanced up and saw that she was looking at him with such intensity that it made him a little nervous. Or possibly excited, in some unfamiliar way. 

 

“Yes?”

 

“There’s something that I’d like, from you.”

 

“Of course, Phasma. Anything.”

 

She shook her head. “Don’t say that this time. Not until you’ve heard it. It’s possible… It’s possible that I’ve lost my mind.”

 

His eyes widened. “I don’t think that’s likely, but please, ask.”

 

She carefully set the knot on the shelf beside her bed, then turned back to him and said, “I’d like to kiss you. If that’s something you would also like. Only if that.”

 

Hux’s brain seemed to slam to a stop. Somehow, despite the fact that their faces had been moving closer together, inch by inch, as they’d been talking, that statement was the last thing he’d been expecting. There didn’t seem to be room in his thought processes for anything other than imaging what might be like, if he said yes. It seemed like taking a step to the side and sliding into a completely new reality. He knew, theoretically, that people did things like this all the time, and that sometimes they didn’t even particularly trust each other when they did. But to him, it seemed like he’d have to trust her, and that admitting that he trusted her to kiss him was a thousand times bigger of a step than admitting that he trusted her with his life. 

 

“Armitage?” she asked, breaking the silence. Her face was still, not giving anything away, but her shoulders slumped a little bit. 

 

He had to say something. He had to say something or he’d lose his grip on this terrifying, exhilarating new reality. He would stop sliding sideways and snap back into the way things were before. He liked the way things were before. It was comfortable and safe, and he was confident that he could understand it. 

 

He liked the way things were before, but he _wanted_ this new thing. 

 

“I would like that,” he finally managed to choke out the words. “Please.”

 

And then he kissed her, or she kissed him, or they moved at the same time, but however it started, it happened. 

 

***

 

If she had been asked to think about kissing before it actually happened to her (and, honestly, she’d thought about kissing, though she’d never expected it to happen to her), Phasma would have guessed that the “how” of it would come to a person naturally. She had the vague sense that many people in the galaxy figured it out, after all. 

 

She would have been wrong in that guess. Beyond the basic premise of “put lips together,” neither of them really knew what to do. They both sort of froze, trying not to bump their noses together. 

 

That wasn’t to say that it was an unpleasant experience. Far from it, actually. Phasma felt warm all over, as if the world was taking on the fuzzy golden quality of the sunlight on the planet they’d just left. She found herself noticing a wide variety of things about Armitage that she’d never thought of before, like the fact that his lips were chapped and bitten but his face and hair were so, so soft. _Oh, that’s interesting_ , she thought distantly, realizing that one of her hands was cupped around the back of his head, fingers sliding over his hair, and the other was cradling his face. That part, holding him as gently as if she was handling a delicate piece of machinery, that part had come naturally. 

 

Her hands remained in those places when they pulled a little ways apart, staring wide-eyed at each other. His own hands were on her back, one between her shoulder blades and the other around the middle of her spine. They were still and warm and as attention-grabbing as signal flares. 

 

“Have you ever done that before?” she asked, her voice low despite the fact that there was no one else around. 

 

He shook his head. “No,” he said back, also quiet, sounding almost reverent. Then he made a face and said, “That part, no. The other part, yes, but…” He cleared his throat and looked away from her. “Not… Not by choice.”

 

She felt something in her chest and stomach twist sickly. Of all the things she would have wanted to share with him, this was at the bottom of the list. She used the hand on his face to guide him back to looking at her. 

 

“Me neither,” she said. “Not this part. The other part, yes, but not by choice,” she echoed. 

 

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

 

She nodded, lifted her hands to rest them on his shoulders. “Me too. But I don’t think it would be at all the same with you. You aren’t like anyone else, Armitage.”

 

“Neither are you.”

 

She leaned in toward him again, thinking that she didn’t know how many times people generally kissed during these sorts of encounters but thinking that she’d like to find out. As she did, she ran her hands down his arms, which made him shiver, which made her smile. She went to hold his hands, but one of her hands closed around his wrist instead. 

 

He jumped, hissed through his teeth, then immediately muttered, “Oh, hell, what the hell was that, there was no reason for that…” Alarmed, she removed her hands and took a step back, running her eyes over that arm, looking for some wound she must have jostled. He was looking back at her with a look of abject, miserable shame. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “What did I do? No reason for what? Did I hurt you?”

 

“No, no,” he said quickly, “I didn’t mean… I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to myself. _I’m_ sorry, that was… completely uncalled for.”

 

“What happened?” she asked, bewildered.

 

“No, I’m not, it’s just… It isn’t fair to you, it has nothing to do with you! I don’t even understand myself, I know it’s you.” He crossed his arms, his voice rising in frustration. 

 

 _Oh_. This, too, she thought she understood. She put a hand on his shoulder again, very lightly. “What should I not do?” she asked. 

 

He curled his arm around her and pulled her closer, so that he was almost speaking into her neck, looking down. “It’s foolish, but… Please, could you try not to hold on to my wrists? Or hold me down? Obviously I need to try to develop a more rational reaction, of course, but…”

 

“No,” she said softly, before he could say anything else. “No, that’s not a difficult request. I won’t do those things.”

 

He let out a relieved huff of breath against her collarbone. “Oh,” he said, and pressed his face closer to her in a way that made his hair tickle against her neck and face. This was dramatically less irritating than she would have thought it would be, and in fact made her breath come a little shorter. “Thank you. Thank you. I… Is there anything that I shouldn’t do?”

 

She thought about that for a moment, sliding her hands around to the small of his back because the warmth of his skin under his shirt and the shape of his spine were suddenly fascinating to her. “I would prefer you not ask me to be…” she began, finally. She wasn’t sure how to phrase what she didn’t want, the oily, sick, small feeling she wanted to avoid. “I would rather be in a position to see your face, than not,” she began again. “I’d like to be able to see that it’s you.”

 

Before she had time to think about how stupid that sounded (who else would he be?) he was nodding and drawing back to look earnestly at her. “Of course, Phasma. Of course. Trust me.”

 

She cocked her head. “I do, Armitage. Of course I do.”  

 

He was looking at her as if she’d hung all the stars in the sky. It made her feel like she couldn’t quite get enough air, so she leaned forward until her lips were just a breath away from his and asked, “May I?”

 

“Please do,” he whispered.

 

She kissed him again. This time, it felt like it came naturally. Or a bit more naturally, at least. 

 

***

 

When he woke up, some number of hours later, Hux was next to her, her arms around him and his face pressed to her shoulder. He blinked up at her, at the still and perfect calm of her sleeping face, and felt simultaneously exhausted and overwhelmed. He wanted to go back to sleep, but was afraid that if he did, he’d lose his grasp on whatever had just happened. Perhaps it would turn out to have been only something he’d imagined, something too incomprehensible and wonderful to be a part of the sick and bloody reality of his life. 

 

He had to touch her somehow, to reassure himself. He drew back from her a little bit, looking at the scar across her bare shoulder, where his face had just been resting. Something, probably a blaster bolt, had carved a gnarled path up the edge of her chest and taken a divot out of the top of her shoulder. He wondered if it would be too great of a liberty to take to kiss the mark while she was asleep. Considering the way they had touched each other before they’d fallen asleep, the memory of which made his face flush and his heart pick up speed with pleasure that he felt should probably be embarrassment but couldn’t manage to change in any way, he thought perhaps it would be okay. 

 

He brushed his lips against her skin lightly, even so, not wanting to impose, to take, to demand. He could feel the smoothness of her skin and the warped texture of the scar; it made him close his eyes tightly, overcome by a feeling of mingled weakness and strength. Wildly, he thought that he could no longer rely on himself the way he had once done, but that he had traded his ideal of isolated self-sufficiency for something far more powerful. He wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that, but he was momentarily certain that it was true.

 

His hair must have tickled her face, because she shifted in her sleep, pulling him even closer. He could feel the bunching and releasing of her muscles; she was so strong, she could probably pick him straight off the ground and throw him. The thought should have been terrifying, should have made him want to put as much distance between them as possible, to retrieve his heavy officer’s coat and cover himself up again. Instead, the thought provoked the opposite reaction, making him tuck his head under her chin and try to get as near her as he possibly could. 

 

 _She isn’t like anyone else_ , he thought to himself, echoing her earlier words as he drifted back into sleep. He skirted the edge of a realization about her, something important that he needed to understand about her, but that he wasn’t able to reach before slipping back into unconsciousness.

 

***

 

When Phasma woke up, some number of hours after that, she found that Armitage had turned so that his back was pressed snugly to her front. One of her arms was coiled around his waist, the other tucked under his head and curved around his shoulder, so that the palm of her hand was flat against his chest. His pulse was as clear to her as her own; they seemed to be beating perfectly in time. 

 

Reluctantly, feeling the pins and needles in her fingers, she withdrew the arm that was under his head, flattening it against his back, instead, to restore the blood flow. He huffed an irritated breath at the jostling, but didn’t otherwise move. She blinked in surprise at the rush of fondness that poured through her at such a simple, unconscious sound. 

 

She moved her hand back and forth across Armitage’s back, a soothing gesture that a peacefully sleeping man surely didn’t need but that she felt compelled to do anyway. As she did so, she felt the irregularity of the skin between his shoulder blades, and slowed her hand, pulling back slightly to look down at him in the dim light of the room’s electronics. 

 

Thin, pale white scars, only slightly discolored from the rest of his skin, criss-crossed each other across his upper back, all the way across from one shoulder to the other in overlapping lines. She thought he knew what had caused them, and who, and was suddenly grateful for a murder that she had carried out, so many years ago. She wondered how soon it had begun, how far back through the years the scars could be traced. Had it started immediately, after his father had taken him?

 

She remembered her own first beating, three days after she’d been taken by the First Order. Captain Irus, her first commanding officer, had seen some defiance in her face, in the way she looked at him, had noticed the way she tried to comfort and look after the other children. He’d decided to nip any insubordination and divided loyalties in the bud by standing her up in front of all the other recruits from her planet and holding the Stick against her spine for thirty seconds. The device had had some official name, of course, but the recruits had only ever called it the Stick. It stimulated the nerves directly through the skin, and the longer it was held in contact with a person, the farther the pain spread. She’d been screaming almost immediately, but she’d stayed standing the entire time. 

 

The worst part, paradoxically, had been the fact that her commander wasn’t angry at her. He didn’t show any emotion at all. It was just routine. That had been the part that had truly terrified her. Perhaps it had been the same for Armitage, just a bit of routine, just another task in his father’s day. 

 

She leaned her head forward until she was resting her face in his hair and closed her eyes, avoiding the sight of the scars. They’d both come far enough that no one would be beating them, no one would order them to put their hands up against the wall and stand still and stay on their feet no matter how long the punishment lasted. The First Order had made them both into soldiers, competent enough to do what was necessary to win.

 

The thought didn’t settle her mind, though. Something about the scars on Armitage’s back, the painful memories like deep black pits in her own mind that she had to step carefully around to avoid tipping into them, made her feel… dissatisfied. She felt as if there was something wrong, something beyond the fact that they had once had bad commanders. Her belief in the First Order had never failed, and yet… She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong.

 

She shook her head to chase those thoughts away. At that moment, in that bed, she didn’t feel unsafe. She felt as if, holding Armitage the way she was, she’d become a wall that could keep anything from getting to them, from hurting them. 

 

It was preposterous, and untrue, and it went against everything she’d thought she’d known about these sorts of… physical relationships. Somehow, though, touching him and being touched by him had made her feel stronger and braver, rather than weaker and more afraid. 

 

She didn’t understand it, but she thought she could enjoy it, at least for a little while. She pressed a kiss to the back of his head and slid back into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my original outline for this fic, this chapter was labeled "Let's Talk About Sex, Baby!" Make of that what you will :)


	10. Incurable Tyrants and Kings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter has discussions of past child abuse. 
> 
> Phew, part of this chapter gave me so much trouble that I had to write it backwards from the end, paragraph by paragraph. But the end is in sight for this fic! 
> 
> The Knights of Ren in this chapter are named after Kappa Orionis (Saiph) and Lambda Herculis (Maasym). The system names come from "aldar rof" ("destruction of the age", another name for Ragnarok) and "Idavollr" (possibly "splendor-plain", the name of the field where Ragnarok will take place). Because it's almost final battle time!

For once, Armitage woke up before her without the aid of an alarm. Phasma woke up to see him sitting up in bed beside her, knees drawn up and arms wrapped around them, staring off into space. 

 

For a terrible second, she thought that he regretted what they’d done, that their alliance had been destroyed. But then she sat up and he turned toward her, smiling as brightly as she’d ever seen him. 

 

“You’re awake,” he said softly. 

 

“So are you,” she said, then put her arms around his middle and tugged gently until he lay back down beside her. “What woke you? Are you alright?”

 

“I’m fine,” he said. “I slept fine. I… I liked sleeping back to back, it was helpful, but I liked this more.”

 

Phasma laughed. “Well, we’re in agreement there.” She moved her arms up and down his back and, without thinking about it, found herself running one hand across the scars between his shoulders. 

 

He blinked at her in sudden surprise. “What are you doing?”

 

She froze. “Sorry. Did… Does that hurt?”

 

He shook his head. “No, of course not, they’re too old, but… I wouldn’t have thought you’d want to touch them.”

 

She sighed against a cold shock of hurt and shame. “Oh. Do you not… Is it because you don’t want to touch the scars I have?”

 

“No, that isn’t…” He tilted his head to the side, looking confused. “That’s different. You got yours by being… well, brave.” She had always thought that she’d gotten her scars by just doing what she had to, but she felt so warm and overcome with feeling at hearing him call her brave that she didn’t say anything. “Whereas I,” he continued, “I got mine by, well.” She couldn’t understand why he looked embarrassed. “By not living up to my potential. Not being… as good as I was supposed to be.”

 

For a second, she didn’t have any thoughts at all in response to that. Then, she remembered the pain of all the scars she’d received, and imagined that his own scars had been just as painful, and thought that he hadn’t deserved it, and that _she_ hadn’t deserved it, and then she thought with satisfaction about Brendol Hux’s death. She hoped it had been just as painful, or more. 

 

He was still looking at her with uncertainty on his face, so she pulled him closer and put her hand very deliberately between his shoulder blades. 

 

“No,” she said, “no, I don’t think that’s how you got them, at all. And fuck whatever he thought of your potential. You’re still standing, still fighting, while he’s in the ground because he crossed you. You won, Armitage.”

 

She kissed him. When she opened her eyes, he was giving her that look again, as if she’d made all the lights come on in the galaxy. “Yes,” he said, “yes, I think I did.”

 

***

 

What Hux hadn’t wanted to tell Phasma, partly because he didn’t want her to worry about him and partly because he thought it was a ridiculous thing to have disturbed him so much, was that he’d been woken up by a particularly horrible dream. 

 

He thought it wasn’t really fair that he should have what might possibly have been the best few hours of his life just to cap them off with a nightmare that left him feeling like a shaken child, but that was life, he supposed. 

 

In his dream, he’d been a child again, in his father’s house, and he’d been following his father around as he discussed military business with other officers and gave orders to his subordinates. He’d started the dream afraid, of course, because he’d known that he had to be absolutely silent and avoid disturbing or distracting his father in any way. 

 

But one of the reports his father had received had been about the Stormtrooper program. It wasn’t going well, it wasn’t producing results, it was becoming a drain on resources. His father had, without breaking stride, without seeming to think about it for more than a few seconds, ordered that the program be discontinued and all program assets be liquidated. 

 

He had known, with the sourceless certainty of dreams, that one of those assets was critically, terribly important to him, and that he wouldn’t survive if that order were carried out. He had known he had to speak up, had to say something, convince his father to cancel the order. But his fear of his father was choking him, pressing down on him and making it impossible to say anything. 

 

So he’d just gone on following his father, silent, from room to room, while his fear held him and his desperation and despair grew, and he became more and more convinced that he was nothing but a coward. 

 

He’d woken up panicking and deeply, sickly ashamed. The only thing that had allowed his heart to slow back to normal had been the fact that she was there, lying beside him in bed, breathing evenly and alive and so unbelievably beautiful that he almost couldn’t bear it.

 

He kept stealing glances at her as they both dressed. One of those times she looked up as he did and caught his eyes. He immediately blushed and muttered an apology.

 

She laughed. “Don’t worry. I was looking at you, too.”

 

They both paused at the doorway, tense. Hux had the thought that they were both waiting for the same thing but weren’t sure how to ask for it. Or at least he hoped they both wanted the same thing. He cleared his throat, well aware of how hot his face was and hoping it wasn’t too obvious, and leaned slightly toward her, asking, “May I?”

 

She grinned and pulled him closer. He’d never noticed before that her smile was just slightly crooked. The realization filled him with an absurd amount of fondness. “Please do,” she said, and kissed him soundly. He left the room smiling dazedly. 

 

It was almost disappointing to step out into the corridor. Nothing changed between the bunk and the ship beyond, but it still felt as if they’d left a warm, safe place and come out somewhere colder and darker. 

 

Even that feeling wasn’t enough to destroy his good mood. Nor was stepping into the canteen for the strategy session that General Organa had ordered and seeing that they were the last ones there, the Resistance members all already sitting around the table with somber, uncertain faces, and that the only coffee left in the machine was the dregs. 

 

But his mood was thoroughly wrecked when, just as General Organa was drawing breath to start the conversation, Hux’s datapad beeped an alert. 

 

“What is that?” General Organa asked, narrowing her eyes. 

 

“It’s a battle alert,” Hux said, snatching his datapad out of his pocket, his throat suddenly dry. “I set it up to warn me if First Order forces were involved in anything more than small border skirmishes. If there were casualties.” He switched the datapad on and read the alert quickly, his heart sinking. The helplessness of reading about something happening to his troops that he had no way to influence made his skin crawl. 

 

“What is it?” Phasma asked, concerned. “What’s happened?”

 

“Zosma Ren wasn’t wrong,” Hux said, his voice trembling with anger. “Vega isn’t planning to waste time. She’s already made a move.” He turned off the datapad and slammed it down onto the table.

 

“What happened?” Phasma repeated, urgently.

 

“Vega’s ship and two others of the same type ambushed Ren as he was in transit past the outpost on Aldarov Three. Ren detoured and demanded assistance from the outpost. The Major in charge of the outpost evacuated the non-combat personnel and officers and recalled a fighter squadron doing maneuvers a few lightyears away to rendezvous with and guard Ren. He also…” Hux paused, not looking at Phasma. “He ordered the three Stormtrooper combat groups stationed there to hold the outpost. Against any possible ground attack.”

 

Phasma had gone very still. “Ground attack?” she asked, her voice quiet and unpleasantly calm. “Did he really think those ships were going to land?”

 

“I don’t have any idea what he was thinking,” Hux said. 

 

“And?” Phasma asked, her tone weary. The others were looking between them, confused. Only General Organa seemed to know what he was going to answer. She looked at the ground and shook her head. 

 

“The ships opened fire and destroyed the outpost,” Hux said flatly. “No survivors expected.”

 

Phasma was silent for a long moment. “Whose were they?” she asked at last.

 

“IY division,” Hux answered. “It was a fucking unconscionable waste of good soldiers.” 

 

Phasma nodded, closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, nodded again, then abruptly stood from the table with such force that she knocked her chair over. She whirled on her heel and stalked out of the room, her body so tense she looked as if her muscles would snap from the strain.

 

“Phasma,” Hux called after her, springing to his feet and nearly upsetting his cup of coffee.

 

“Don’t follow me!” she shouted from the hall, her voice ragged.

 

He was almost out the door anyway, without thinking about it, when General Organa caught his arm. He turned to look at her in surprise and she looked back, stony faced.

 

“She told you what she wants. You should listen to her. Besides, we have plans to make.”

 

“And she should be here for that,” Hux said angrily.  

 

“She’s decided she needs time to herself, fine,” General Organa answered, an edge to her voice, “but time is something we are running out of. We’ll just have to fill her in later. Now, where did Kylo Ren go from the Aldarov outpost?”

 

Hux pulled himself together and picked up his datapad again, scrolling through the after-action report. “He met up with the squadron at the edge of the Idavoller system. It’s First Order territory that’s slated for development but currently lacks inhabited planets or moons. It looks as if Vega and her accompanying ships followed them into the system.”

 

“Then that’s where we’ll have to go,” General Organa said decisively.

 

Hux looked at her in shock. “That’s the last place we should be. We should stay out of this, let whatever Knights there are destroy each other. At least we’ll have fewer to deal with.” 

 

“I disagree,” General Organa answered. “Aren’t you forgetting your favorite battle, General? They’ll be distracted with each other, just like your father was distracted chasing those deserters. If we let one of them win this fight, they’ll be able to consolidate their power. Neither Kylo nor Vega will ever be as weak as they are now. We’ll be coming in from the side while they’re facing each other.”

 

Hux had to admit the logic of that, but he still protested, “There are ten ships in the squadron that Ren took with him.”

 

“That’s not impossible,” Poe chimed in, “it just means we need to be a lot better than them.”

 

“It’s not impossible, no,” Hux said, slowly as if he was talking to a child, “but it gives us a very slim margin for error. We’ll be enormously outgunned, unless…” He glanced at General Organa. “Unless you have reinforcements ready. Are there any other Resistance units nearby?”

 

“There’s no one,” General Organa snapped, cutting him off. He looked at her in surprise. In all the time they’d been sharing a ship, he hadn’t seen her lose her composure yet. “So there it is. Ever since Crait it seems like every mission leads to loss of lives we can’t spare. We’ve been hemorrhaging people and ships. There is _no one_ that I can call in.” Hux recognized the tension in her voice, the guilt that one always had to turn into anger at the enemy to avoid being paralyzed the next time a decision had to be made. General Organa sighed, seeming suddenly tired. Beside her, Poe looked at her worriedly. “There’ll be no reinforcements, and we’ll be up against whatever First Order forces Ren decides to throw at us, in addition to the Knights themselves.”

 

“I have an idea on that score,” Hux said. “Ren disavowed Phasma and stripped us of our ranks, but there’s no reason I can’t do the same to him. I still have a backdoor into the communications systems of the First Order and can issue an order to ignore Ren’s orders and those of any other Knights of Ren.” 

 

“Will that work?” General Organa asked, looking at him appraisingly. 

 

“I’ve been a soldier and an officer in the First Order for well over a decade,” Hux said, bristling slightly. “The First Order knows me far better than it knows Ren. At the very least, it will create confusion and make any resistance we encounter less coordinated.” As he spoke, he felt a sudden chill of horror. He almost couldn’t believe what he was saying. A split in loyalty, and the chaos that would result, was exactly what he had been hoping to avoid. It would cost lives and resources, and here he was suggesting it to aid a mission being planned by his enemies. 

 

It would probably be better for the First Order, at this point, if he simply returned and placed himself at the mercy of Kylo Ren’s judgment. If he was on his own, he might have done just that. But he couldn’t, despite everything he had done and everything he had once been certain of. Phasma deserved to be able to return to the First Order a hero, rather than a traitor marked for death. She had stood by him, and he had to give her that if he could.

 

To cover his confusion, he said, “It will at least help. If you’re certain that now is the time to strike.”  

 

“I don’t think we have a choice,” General Organa said. “We won’t get any better opportunities than this, and if we delay, we’ll just be back where we started. It’s now or never.”

 

Hux took a deep breath. “I agree,” he said.

 

“Good,” General Organa said, as if there had never been any chance that he wouldn’t see reason. She nodded to Chewbacca. “Chewie, could you go get our guests and bring them in?”

 

Chewbacca responded with a roar and lumbered out of the room with his long strides. They were silent through the long minutes until he returned with the Knights. Hux felt like he needed to crawl out of his skin, and he couldn’t stop wondering where Phasma was. He half wanted to reach out to her through the Force, but he was so agitated himself that he wasn’t sure his mind would be at all helpful. So instead he kept silent, staring at the floor and trying not to think about the horrible dream he’d had the night before.

 

“So, have you thought it over?” Zosma Ren asked, as soon as she walked into the room. “Are you willing to help us?”

 

“We might have to,” General Organa answered. “It seems you were right about Vega Ren’s intentions.” And she explained what the intelligence report had said, and their plan to ambush the two Knights in the Idavoller system.

 

“Ah,” Zosma said, looking away. “I told you. She moves quickly when she’s sure.”

 

“You said you could tell us about the Knights that we would be facing,” General Organa said. “Let’s hear it, then.”

 

Zosma didn’t say anything for a moment, so Errai began, “Vega’s greatest ability is her Spear. But we know how to counter it.”

 

“Her spear?” General Organa asked. 

 

Zosma looked up and smiled grimly. “That’s what Snoke used to call it. Vega’s Spear. You felt it,” she said, nodding at Hux. 

 

He flushed at the memory of the attack on his mind, the paralyzing, crushing aloneness that had incapacitated him long enough for Vega to shoot down their ship. “You can counter it?”

 

“Will everyone be able to learn the counter?” Rey asked, gesturing to Rose and Poe. 

 

“No, but her Spear works best on Force users. It has a much less dramatic effect on those who aren’t Force-sensitive. It’s the opposite of my illusions, in that way.” Zosma smiled at Hux, and he felt a flash of irritation. “Interesting secret you’ve been keeping, General. You’re one of us.”

 

“I am absolutely not one of you,” Hux said shortly. “Just tell us more about the Knights and keep the rest to yourself.”

 

“Of course,” Zosma said. “Besides the Spear, of course, Vega is quite powerful. However, as I’m sure you’ve discovered with Kylo,” Zosma said, glancing at Rey, “Snoke put the emphasis, for his prized apprentices, on attack. Neither Kylo nor Vega is as strong in defending their minds or preventing Force attacks getting through their walls. However, Saiph Ren is one of the Knights that has joined her, and he is quite good at defense. He is even better at illusions than I am, so we will have to be careful. But, again, we have developed counters that I can show you. It won’t be as good as having years of practice with your brothers’ and sisters’ abilities, but it’s something.”

 

“And the other Knight that has joined Vega?”

 

Zosma frowned. “Maasym Ren.”

 

“He is the bravest fighter of all of us,” Errai chimed in. “He fears nothing.”

 

Zosma shook her head slowly. “He fears nothing, yes,” she said slowly. “He is dangerous on the attack because he throws himself into it entirely.” She looked at General Organa. “He is brutal. That is what he is. There are two ways to come to terms with being a weapon. The first is to go away somewhere else, pretend you are something else and ignore or reframe the things you do. The other is to embrace the things you do, and pretend that you are not and never were anything but a tool for harm. Maasym is of the second sort.”

 

“That isn’t true!” Errai protested, glaring at Zosma. “It isn’t true, Zo. He’s brave, he believes in what he’s doing.”

 

The two Knights looked at each other in silence for a long moment. Errai was the first to look away. Zosma turned back to General Organa. “That is my assessment, General. Take it or leave it. Maasym attacks like someone who doesn’t care whether he lives or dies. There is no counter I can offer you for that.”

 

General Organa sighed. “Well, we’ll do what we can. You’ll teach our Force-users every countermeasure you know. We’ll base our strategy around that.”

 

Hux nodded at her words, and for a moment felt a familiar flash of pleasure at being pivotal to the mission, at being one of the keys around which the strategy was constructed. This was almost immediately overtaken by a very complicated and frightening mix of emotions at being called one of “our Force-users.”

 

General Organa leveled her intimidating stare at Zosma and Errai. “Are you ready to accompany us?”

 

The two Knights looked taken aback. Zosma recovered first. “Of course. Anything we can do to help.”

 

“Good,” General Organa said. “Because we’ll need all the help we can get.”

 

***

 

Rey headed for the room they’d been using for Force practice, because it was the best place she could think of to try to contact Luke. How she was going to do that, she had no idea. She had the sneaking suspicion that there wasn’t any way to contact Luke, that he would come and go as he saw fit and that she would never have any idea when that would be. But it couldn’t hurt to try. 

 

However, when she turned the corner into the room, she saw that Hux was already there, leaning against the wall, cross-legged and with his eyes closed. He hadn’t noticed her come in; the desert had given her sure-footedness and an appreciation for quiet. She cleared her throat and his eyes snapped open. 

 

“What are you doing in here?” she asked. 

 

“Using the Force,” he said, as if admitting something shameful. 

 

She rolled her eyes and crossed the room to sit down next to him, careful to leave a foot of space between them. “You can use it anywhere, you know. Not just in here.”

 

“I know that,” he snapped. She felt a bit guilty for taunting him; after all, she’d come in here to contact Luke because it was the last place she’d seen him, even though the place shouldn’t make any difference at all. 

 

“Alright,” she said. “What are you doing with the Force, then?”

 

Hux frowned and didn’t answer. She shrugged and leaned back against the wall. She was confident that she could be more stubborn than he could. She’d learned patience on Jakku, after all, going stir-crazy in a tiny living space while hours-long sandstorms crashed by outside. She was good at waiting. 

 

Finally, he said, “I was locating Captain Phasma.”

 

“Locating her?”

 

“It was one of the first things she and I practiced, when she was training me. I could locate every one of you on the ship.”

 

“That’s pretty good!” Rey said encouragingly. “Did you find her?”

 

He nodded. “I know where she is. I don’t know if I should go there, though. I don’t know if she wants to be alone. It’s frustrating, not knowing.”

 

“How is she feeling? Are you able to tell?”

 

“No. I’m only on the surface of her mind.”

 

“Can you not go any deeper?”

 

He gave her a look as if she were insane. “No, I absolutely cannot. I promised her that I never would without her express permission.”

 

_Oh, of course_ , Rey thought. It was the sort of promise that made sense, given what she’d seen of Hux’s and Phasma’s relationship, but not the sort of promise she could imagine the cruel, heartless General of the First Order making. She didn’t think he was as much a machine as he wanted to be. “That’s good,” she said.

 

He kept looking at her, frowning in thought. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he looked away, shifting uncomfortably. “May I ask you something?” he asked.

 

“Yes,” she said warily. 

 

“Do you… Do you agree with Zosma Ren? In your mind, am I one of them? I know you believe in this Light Side and Dark Side nonsense. Do you see it as all the same thing, I mean, all the Force-users in the First Order are on the Dark Side? Do you think of me as one of the, what were they called, the anti-Jedi…”

 

“The Sith?” she asked.

 

“Yes, them. Am I one of them?”

 

She looked him over. She could imagine few people less like her and Finn. In his bulky coat and with his slicked-back hair and military posture, he seemed to be far removed from the freedom that she had come to associate with both the Resistance and the Light Side of the Force. But she also could imagine few people less like Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren had crafted himself just as carefully for chaotic malice as Hux had for absolute control. 

 

“No,” she finally said. “I don’t think that’s what you are. It’s strange, I grew up hearing stories about Luke Skywalker, and the fight between the Jedi and the Sith. When the Force was something from a story, when it wasn’t a part of my life, it was easier to think that all Force-users had to be one or the other. That it was that simple. But now that it’s closer, now that I’m in the middle of it… I think it must be more complicated than that.”

 

Neither of them said anything for a while. When Hux spoke again, it was in a voice so quiet that she had to strain to hear him. “I asked Phasma to kill me if I ever began to resemble Kylo Ren. I think now… In light of everything that's happened, it would be cruel of me to expect her to hold to that.”

 

Rey looked at him in disbelief, then shook her head. “I don’t understand the way you think about the Force. You say that believing in the Light Side and the Dark Side is superstitious, but you’re just as bad. You think it’s either or, you’ll be yourself, just the same as you were before, or you’ll be Kylo Ren. You’re not Kylo Ren, and I doubt you could even pretend to be him.”

 

“Well, then, how do you see it?” he asked, a little huffily. 

 

“When I realized I could use the Force, it felt like… Some part of me I hadn’t been aware of was waking up. I was still myself, who else could I be? Just a bit different.”

 

“Yourself but different?” Hux asked, raising an eyebrow dubiously. 

 

“I may never run out of new things to discover about myself,” Rey said cheerfully. 

 

“Well, if that’s how you feel,” Hux replied, “but I know who I am, and I was well aware of who I was long before the Force entered the picture.”

 

“You were completely sure of who you were twenty years ago, and nothing’s changed since then?” Rey asked. He nodded. She stared him down. “Really,” she said dryly. “In all those twenty years, you can’t think of a single thing that’s happened to you that’s changed you. Even a little bit.”

 

He looked away from her, expression uncomfortable, and she grinned. “The Force can’t make you Kylo Ren. It doesn’t even have to make you a Jedi or a Sith, I don’t think.”

 

“Good, because I have no desire to be either of those ridiculous things,” he said. 

 

“Do you want to see something Finn and I know how to do?” she asked suddenly. 

 

“Um… Alright,” he said, warily. 

 

She found the bridge between their minds, beginning to fade a bit but stronger now then it was before, given all they’d had to communicate to each other on the planet’s surface. She snapped it back into full life so suddenly that he jumped. 

 

“Stop doing that,” he hissed. 

 

“Sorry,” she said, smiling. “Watch what I do.” She did the dust trick again, just as she had with Finn. It seemed like much longer ago than it really was. The storeroom had plenty of dust to be found, piling up around the corners of the crates and boxes, and she pulled half of it into a spinning orbit around her hand, sending the other half streaming over to hover in front of Hux, wanting to see what he’d do. 

 

He looked between her and the cloud of dust for a long time, seeming unsure. Finally, he stretched out a hand and furrowed his brow, and she felt his mind take over from hers. 

 

The dust in front of him coalesced and broke apart several times as he hesitantly experimented, but as he worked on it, she could feel his mind, drawn tight with his seemingly constant tension, begin to uncoil slightly. His first instinct was still to try to hold the Force at a distance; she thought it must be exhausting. 

 

Finally, the dust began to take a definite shape. She laughed delightedly as she realized that it was a simple circuit map. She let the dust around her own hand cross the space between them and form new junctions and pathways, building the circuit up and making it more complicated. 

 

They built together like that for a while. When she glanced over at Hux, she realized he was even smiling a little. 

 

She felt, across the bridge, something occur to him, and he let the dust fall back to the ground distractedly. “Um, Rey,” he said, “do you have bridges like this with… well, with Rose and Poe? Can you make a bridge to people who can’t use the Force?”

 

“No,” she said carefully. “It’s different with them. It’s a different… reaction, I suppose, in their minds. But,” she said, catching his eye, “that doesn’t mean I don’t know them. It doesn’t mean I’m closer to Finn. Being Force-sensitive doesn’t cut me off from people who aren’t.” 

 

“Oh,” he said softly. “Good. I’m glad.” He cleared his throat. “I should go back to our part of the ship. In case Captain Phasma needs anything.”

 

“Of course,” she said, just as quietly, and watched him go. When she could no longer hear his footsteps in the corridor, she stood up and looked around the room. “Luke?” she said, and then, a little louder, “Luke?”

 

There was no answer. There was no glimmer of blue light, no familiar form taking shape anywhere. With sudden anger, she turned and kicked the wall. 

 

“Why not now?” she shouted at the empty room. “One of your old students is on board this ship, and we’re going to have to figure out how to fight two others, and this _isn’t_ the time you think is best to show up? Why not now? Where are you?”

 

There was no answer.

 

***

 

Phasma had no idea how long she had been sitting tucked into a corner of one of the rooms in their wing of the ship. It was the room they had used when she’d been trying to help Armitage train with the Force, she realized, glancing around. She’d been happy in this room. Concerned for Armitage, confused about what the Force was doing to him, worried about what would happen with their mission. But happy, because she was with him and helping him and working toward something with him. Happiness wasn’t something that happened often, in the kind of life she led. 

 

She wasn’t happy anymore. _Soldiers die_ , she thought, consolingly, to herself. _Stormtroopers die. It’s a risk they all understood_. But it didn’t fix the discomfort, the roiling upset that she felt in her mind. She’d been going around and around in circles in her thoughts, trying to find the way out of the loop of painful feelings, and she hadn’t managed it yet. 

 

_They weren’t your troopers. They weren’t under your command. You aren’t responsible for their deaths_. But that thought didn’t help either. Someone was responsible. They hadn’t died fighting the Resistance or the Republic or any of the First Order’s actual enemies. They had died because of internal strife, because of ambition and greed for power coming from the inside of the thing she had believed in for so long. 

 

_It wasn’t fair_. That was a stupid, pointless thought. Nothing was fair. There was no such thing as fairness. 

 

_They weren’t even fighting our enemies_ , she thought again. She couldn’t shake that thought loose. Enemies or traitor factions, it shouldn’t matter, it should be the same thing. But she was suddenly reminded of the sense of wrongness she had felt at the sight of the scars of Armitage’s back.

 

_Those Stormtroopers didn’t die fighting our enemies. Those scars weren’t left by our enemies. Our enemies didn’t beat me. Our enemies didn’t demand things from me that made me feel sick and afraid. Our enemies did none of it_.

 

Her enemies had helped her retrieve the pieces of her cape. Her enemies had shared their food with her. Her enemies had taught her to play their favorite games. Her enemies had taught Armitage how to use the Force, and kept him from accidentally killing himself. 

 

Without even thinking about what she was doing, she got up off the floor and went to find Armitage. 

 

She was shaking, slightly, by the time she got to his door. She couldn’t sort out her feelings; she was angry one second, ashamed the next, then sad, then guilty, then angry again. She wanted him to help her, but she also wanted him to fight with her, or figure out how she was wrong so that she could go back to normal. 

 

She knocked on the door, and felt a chill when she did. She couldn’t go back, now. It was going to be done. 

 

Armitage opened the door and, when he saw the expression on her face, immediately stepped back so that she could come in. “I understand why you’re upset,” he said. “Such a waste of life because of bad command decisions…”

 

“It was wrong,” she cut him off. There were the words, there was the horror. She felt a brief moment of calm that was almost immediately replaced with even greater agitation. She felt hot, then cold all over.

 

“Well, yes,” he said. “It was the wrong decision to make, and…”

 

“No,” she said, more forcefully than she’d meant to. He looked at her in surprise. “No, not just this. It was all wrong.”

 

“I… I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

 

She was so frustrated that she held her head in her hands and pulled at the short strands of her hair. She’d never let herself show so much of her emotion. She’d never let herself feel this much anger before. She wished he could just _get_ it, because she wasn’t sure she could put everything she was feeling into words. 

 

“The Stormtrooper program,” she said. “Your father. Everything. All the times we had to be hurt. It was all wrong. We shouldn’t have had to suffer so much. It wasn’t _right_.”

 

He stood up straighter and clasped his hands behind his back, just like he did when he was faced with a problem that he had to scramble to solve. Just like he did when he was afraid. She almost screamed; she felt like she was just pushing him back instead of making him understand. She didn’t know how to make him see. 

 

“The First Order’s methods have been harsh, but it was for a purpose. We’ve been at war for decades, we’ve had to adapt to get the soldiers we needed.”

 

“And that was really the best way?” she said, her voice rising. “Armitage, in all my life with the First Order, I never had a commanding officer I thought I could trust until you. I never had a commanding officer who I felt cared about whether my troopers lived or died, I didn’t even have officers I could count on not to hurt me for their own pleasure. Why can’t you see that that isn’t right?”

 

“Of course I see that!” he snapped back. “There’s nothing that disgusts me more than bad command. But it’s a war, Phasma!” He raised his chin, held his shoulders back, as if he was giving a speech. _Don’t, don’t, don’t_ , she thought. _Don’t go away somewhere. Stay here and just listen to me, please_. “The unfortunate reality of war is that shortcuts have to be taken. Sometimes people end up in positions that they aren’t worthy of. But once the war is done, once we win, we can fix those problems. We’ll have the time, the resources.”

 

“When you’re Supreme Leader?” she asked, wincing at the sarcastic edge to her voice. She’d teased him before, but it hadn’t sounded like this. She didn’t want to talk to him like this. “You’ll get rid of all the bad commanders and make everything okay again?”

 

“Yes!” he snapped back, narrowing his eyes. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do. I thought you…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but she knew by his hurt tone what he had been about to say. _I thought you trusted me_. 

 

“I trust you, Armitage,” she said. “But are you immortal? Who is going to come after you? Who’s going to come after them? Who the hell is going to be Supreme Leader when you’re long dead? Will they be as trustworthy?”

 

He shrunk back from her as if she’d physically struck him, and she knew she’d voiced a question he’d asked himself before. His voice was quiet and angry when he answered, “In peace time, we’ll be able to set things up so that the worthy are rewarded and bad commanders never make it far enough to become Supreme Leader. No one will have to be hurt.”

 

“They will, though,” Phasma said, desperately. “They will be hurt because…” She held her terrible understanding in her mind, trying to find the words for the sick certainty she’d discovered. “Because it wasn’t the commanders. It wasn’t just them. The bad commanders, the people who hurt others for fun, they won’t go away because… Because they’re part of the First Order. They’re built into it. It’s just the way the First Order _is_. I don’t know why, but as long as there’s a First Order, there will be those bad commanders. There will be people being hurt. It will never go away.”

 

Armitage didn’t say anything for a long time. He had unclasped his hands from behind his back, held them up in front of him as if he was trying to ward something away. His fingers were trembling. She felt suddenly, deeply worried about him. 

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he finally said, “and I don’t have to listen to this.”

 

Those words were too much for her, and she was suddenly shouting. “You do, you do have to listen! Think about it, think about all the times you were hurt, you really think that was necessary? You were a child! I was a child!” Dimly, she realized that there was something cruel in this, that she was pushing him, maybe harder than he could take. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “None of it was necessary! None of it was right! You have to listen, you have to admit it was wrong! Armitage, please, please, you have to admit that it was wrong!”

 

The hands held up in front of him had clenched into fists, as if he was planning on fighting her. _I taught you how to do that_ , she thought. _I taught you how to fight. You trusted me then, trust me now. Armitage, I’m sorry, please, just listen…_

 

“I don’t have to do anything of the kind,” he said, voice cold. “And I’d thank you to remember your place, _Captain_.” 

 

His eyes widened as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and she felt her whole body go still. They both knew what he’d done, that he’d stepped too far over some line they hadn’t even realized was there. That he’d made them commander and subordinate again, instead of allies or friends or whatever new thing they had been becoming. 

 

“Of course, _sir_ ,” she answered flatly, turning quickly and striding out of the room, blinking quickly against the burning in her eyes. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t want him to see how she was feeling.

 

***

 

As soon as the door closed behind Phasma, Hux turned away from it and, without really even comprehending what he was doing, lowered himself carefully to the floor, curled up on his side, put his arms over his head to shield his face, and burst into wracking, almost painful sobs. 

 

Distantly, he was surprised. The last time he’d cried, he’d been nine years old. He remembered accidentally entering a room where his stepmother was sitting, head bowed and face blotchy with tears. He knew, even then, that she must have lost another pregnancy, or else had been mistaken about it again. He’d tried to back out of the room without attracting her attention, but she’d looked up and seen him. 

 

He’d been sure he was going to be punished in some way. It was no secret that his stepmother hated him. She only ever referred to him as “the boy” or, when his father was out of earshot, “the bastard.” In hindsight, he wasn’t sure he could blame her. She viewed him as exactly what he was: a sign that her husband thought she had failed, and that he had given up on helping her achieve something that she wanted. But at the time, he had been almost as afraid of her as of his father. So when her eyes landed on him, he had frozen, pulse hammering. 

 

But instead of shouting or hitting him, she’d stood up, walked over to him, gotten down on her knees, and pulled him into her arms. He’d been too shocked to move, had barely been able to breathe. It was only when he’d felt that his shirt was wet that he realized that she was crying into his shoulder. 

 

Finally, she’d pulled away from him, gave him a watery smile, held his face between her hands, stroked his hair, then gently turned him around and gave him a push toward the door of the room. He had gone, in bewildered silence that had quickly turned into something much warmer and more damaging. 

 

The next day, of course, when she’d recovered herself, everything had gone back to normal, back to cold glares and stony silences. It was like the moment had never happened. And somehow, impossibly, infuriatingly, losing that brittle shred of hope was almost worse than being taken from his mother in the first place. He had crawled under his bed, curled up as tightly as he could with his face and his knees against the wall, and cried so hard that it had made him nauseous. He hadn’t cried since. 

 

He was remembering how much he hated it. He felt completely out of control of his own body, and was surprised and ashamed to find that he’d ended up in the exact same position, with his face against the wall, as if he’d slid right back into frightened childhood, like he’d never even left. He struggled to stop the tears, but he felt like a ship struggling to escape a gravity well. 

 

Every rational thought he tried to have kept getting drowned out by thoughts like _You lost the only good thing in your entire, miserable life, you idiot_. And, far worse, _She deserved better from you_. 

 

The last thought was what finally got him back on his feet, stumbling into the refresher to scrub his face and comb his hair and try his best to make himself presentable. Of course she deserved better. She was the strongest and best person he’d ever known, and she’d treated him with so much more kindness than he’d ever felt like he deserved. And when she’d needed him to listen to her, he’d failed her. He remembered his dream with a sick feeling, the coward he’d been, following his father around wordlessly and unable to speak up, unable to risk anything to save the person he cared for most in the galaxy. 

 

He wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say to her, even as he walked down the hall to her door and knocked. Something was growing in the back of his mind, some realization that was so enormous and so terrible that he can’t look directly at it, as if a sun had spun into being in his brain. He could only say, could only admit the smallest part of it. 

 

So when she opened the door, the words fell out of his mouth before he was entirely certain what they would be. “You’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

 

“Armitage,” she said, and gently took his arm to pull him into the room. He saw with a rush of misery that her eyes were red, as well. 

 

“I had to tell you,” he said, looking at the ground. “You were right, you were right, I hated my father but when it came down to it I chose him over you. You were right there in front of me and you are the only person in this entire galaxy I can trust but I still chose his fucking hateful memory over you. I’m so sorry. I wanted so badly to be the son that he wanted. Not just because it would make him stop hurting me, but because… Because I wanted his pride, I wanted his approval. If I believed that he was preparing me for something, that he was making me stronger and better, than it was all for something, it meant something and was worth something. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t _for_ anything. He was just hurting me. Because he wanted to. And you were right about him, you were telling me the truth, and I couldn’t see what was right in front of my face when you needed me to. I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, and I… I love you.”

 

He hadn’t meant to say that last part. Immediately, reflexively, he started laughing at himself, because it was such a ridiculous thing to say. But laughing just made him start crying again, and, he realized with horror, it didn’t make the statement any less true. 

 

She put her arms around him and let him sob into her shoulder. _So much for being presentable_ , he thought unhappily. 

 

Then she kissed the top of his head and said, sounding almost confused by her own feelings, “I love you, too. I love you so much.”

 

If he’d thought it had felt strange to say the words, it felt much stranger to hear them. Those words hadn’t been directed at him in twenty-nine years. He had thought he didn’t feel the lack of them, but he had been astonishingly wrong. He tried to press himself closer to her, then realized that he had no right to do that and pulled away instead. She let him get to arm’s length, but kept her hands on his shoulders. 

 

“But…” he trailed off, abjectly miserable. “But what I said…”

 

“You apologized,” Phasma said. “I forgive you.”

 

“You do?” He blinked at her in astonishment. 

 

She pulled him toward her again, her face close to his, her hand brushing over his hair. He bridged the gap between them and kissed her. And kept kissing her for what felt like a very long time. Distantly, he thought that he was probably disgusting and covered with tears and snot, and that it was good of her to put up with him. 

 

When they separated, she smiled at him. “Yes. I do. Why did you come to apologize if you didn’t think I’d forgive you? Wouldn’t it have just been wasted effort?”

 

He shook his head. “I had to tell you. That you were right and I was wrong. It was important to tell you.”

 

She sighed and scratched her fingers along the nape of his neck in a way that was amazing and entirely distracting. “I’m sorry, too. I could have actually _talked_ instead of yelling. But please…” she hesitated. “Please don’t ever use rank against me like that. Aren’t we… aren’t we something other than soldiers, when we’re together?”

 

He nodded against her shoulder. “We are, or at least I want to be, and I won’t again. Phasma,” he said, stopped, started again, “Phasma, I don’t know what to do.”

 

She didn’t answer, but he thought she probably understood. If she had been right in what she’d said, it meant he had to do something. He’d always thought the galaxy needed fixing, and he had no idea how he’d ever fix the First Order itself. 

 

That realization, too bright to look at directly, was still at the back of his mind, growing and becoming harder to ignore. He tried to focus on Phasma instead, on the fact that she wanted to be around him, still, despite his failings, and…

 

“I love you,” she repeated, pulling him close again so he could rest his head on her shoulder. 

 

…And that. She loved him, apparently. That seemed bigger, somehow, than anything else he’d ever achieved.  

 

***

 

In one corner of Leia’s bunk stood an old communications relay that she had been carting around with her for years. It was so outdated and obsolete that the First Order, with their blinding focus on cutting-edge technology, hadn’t been able to crack into its frequencies. She’d used it to make sure that she was never out of contact with her Resistance leaders, and occasionally to send them on missions that she was keeping secret from anyone else. The Resistance had sometimes required orders that she wasn’t proud of, even when they led to results. 

 

The communications relay had been silent for weeks. In the wake of Crait, she had sent her remaining squadrons out on mission after mission, hoping to gather some additional allies, some kind of advantage that could make up for all they’d lost. She had planned the missions carefully, been as cautious as she felt she could afford to be, but she’d still lost squadrons, and she was still left with the fear that she had been too quick to react and had risked her people’s lives for nothing. 

 

It was a fear that she’d carried with her since she’d first been thrust into leadership when she was nineteen. It had never left her, even when she’d thought she’d won peace. She was confident in herself, in her ability to think things through and come to the best conclusion. 

 

And yet… She looked at the silent communications relay, wondering how it had come to this, how she’d lost so many good people and so much ground, if she could have done anything differently to prevent this. 

 

She sighed and got ready for bed.

 

Without warning, the communications relay crackled to life, startling her out of her thoughts. She stared at it in shock for a moment as a distorted voice on the other end of the connection said, “General Organa, do you read?”

 

She jumped for the mouthpiece and held down the button. “This is General Organa. Reading you.”

 

“General, this is Captain Pava,” the voice responded, and Leia felt a jolt of completely unlooked-for happiness.

 

“Jess?” she asked. “You wouldn’t believe how good it is to hear your voice! We thought you were dead! Where are you, how are you? What happened?”

 

“Sorry, General, our mission got a bit hairy,” Jessika answered. Her voice, over the fuzzy connection, sounded airy and unconcerned, but Leia wasn’t fooled. “It’s a no-go on the alliance you wanted us to look into. They sold us out to the First Order before we even got there, had a couple warships waiting for us. We were forced down on a nearby moon and it’s taken us a month to get our ships flying again while staying out of sight of the First Order patrols. But we’re in the sky and in the clear again, and I didn’t lose any of my people, thankfully. I’m transmitting our coordinates to you now.”

 

Leia gave herself a moment to feel the relief of someone who had unexpectedly found one of their grieved-for friends alive and well. She let tears sting her eyes, and even let a few of them fall. 

 

Then, when her moment was up, she pulled herself together and felt the relief of a commander who had unexpectedly found their pool of resources much greater than they had thought. She had a lot to plan, and very little time in which to do it. 

 

“Captain Pava,” she said, “I can’t even tell you how glad I am that you’re all okay. Unfortunately, though, I have another mission for you.”

 

“That’s what I’m here for, General,” Jessika said, sounding unmistakably eager.

 

Leia shook her head at the recklessness of youth and, with only a pang of regret and fear that she immediately pushed aside, said, “Set your course for the Idavoller system. And stand by for your orders.”

 

“Got it, General,” came the answer. “Say hi to Poe for me. It’ll be good flying with him again.”

 

“I’m sure he’ll be just as pleased,” Leia said. 

 

As soon as she cut the transmission, she grabbed her datapad and pulled up a map of Idavoller and the surrounding systems, judging how long it would take all parties to converge. She dared to allow herself to hope for the first time in a long time.


	11. The Love that Makes Undaunted...

“Priority Level 5,” Hux read out. “Attention all units of the First Order. Kylo Ren has been stripped of his command and expelled from the First Order, effective immediately. All units are advised to ignore all orders originating from Kylo Ren. Further, the Knights of Ren is hereby disbanded and all members expelled from the First Order. All units are advised to attempt to capture any Knight of Ren they encounter. If capture is judged to be impossible, any Knights of Ren are to be killed on sight. All First Order soldiers present in the Idavoller system are to stand down immediately and to leave the system at top speed, and is not to fire on any ships encountered unless fired on first.”

 

Hux sighed and looked up. General Organa regarded him thoughtfully. “Are you looking for my input?” she asked. 

 

He tensed, ready to snap back, before he realized that he was. He was unsure about this order, afraid of the lives it might cost in what amounted to a leadership battle that had nothing to do with the rank and file soldiers. He wanted to be angry at himself for looking for the approval of a woman that, if they survived the next few hours, he would go right back to fighting, but he couldn’t muster the energy for anger. His argument with Phasma had drained and confused him, and the realization he didn’t want to think about was still lurking at the edges of his consciousness. So instead, he just nodded. 

 

“From one commander to another,” General Organa said, a turn of phrase that Hux was absurdly, pathetically grateful for, “I think the order will do what we want it to. Is everything in place to send it?”

 

Hux nodded. “I’ve set up a script to re-send it each time Ren rescinds and deletes it. It’ll work until Communications finds my backdoor and shuts it down, but that should take them a while. Hopefully.”

 

Hux was exhausted. He had spent the past three hours, as Rose, Poe, and Chewbacca searched the Idavoller system for Ren and Vega and General Organa went over and over their plans, practicing Zosma’s counters for the Knights of Ren’s attacks with Finn and Rey. He felt as if his brain had been wrung out like wet cloth. It was apparently so obvious that Phasma was standing close beside him, looking as if she was ready to hold him up if he needed it. But there wasn’t time to rest. One way or another, their mission was about to come to an end. 

 

General Organa nodded. “Let’s get this wreck moving, then.”

 

Hux didn’t know whether she was referring to the transport they were on, which had its course into the Idavoller system already programmed in, ready to move, or to the plan itself. Either way, he took a deep breath, let it out, and triggered the order. 

 

They’d tracked Kylo and his pursuers to the second planet in the Idavoller system, to a region where the ruins of an ancient, pre-Republic military base provided places for cover and ambush, and with the Resistance reinforcements that General Organa had seemingly pulled out of thin air, they actually had a chance to go after them on something like an even playing field. If Hux’s order could disrupt the Knights’ ability to call in reinforcements of their own, it would improve their chances even more. Misgivings or no, it had to be done.

 

“It’s done,” he said, and leaned into Phasma’s shoulder, not caring anymore that the Resistance members and the Knights of Ren were watching them. No one said anything about it. In fact, Rey, Rose, Poe, and Finn were huddled very close to each other, and Chewbacca had an enormous paw on General Organa’s shoulder. Even the two Knights, standing straight-backed at attention, had their arms pressed together. 

 

“Well,” General Organa said, “there’s only one thing left to do.” She looked at Chewbacca, who crossed the canteen to a very high cupboard. He pulled out a small bottle containing something amber-colored. 

 

“Is that whiskey?” Hux asked. 

 

“Corellian,” General Organa replied wryly. “Only the best for the end of the road, as Han used to say.” 

 

General Organa opened the bottle and held it up. “To the ones who didn’t make it here,” she said, and took a swig. She passed the bottle across to Hux. 

 

“To the ones who didn’t make it here,” Hux muttered, offering a silent apology to all the soldiers who had died under his command, because he hadn’t been as good as he should have been. He took a swig from the bottle, closing his eyes as he appreciated the taste, then passed it back across the divide between First Order and Resistance into Chewbacca’s waiting paw. 

 

The bottle went back and forth like that, from Chewbacca to Phasma, from Phasma to Rey, from Rey to Zosma, from Zosma to Finn, from Finn to Errai, from Errai to Rose, and finally from Rose to Poe. 

 

“To the ones who didn’t make it here,” Poe finished the toast, and drank the last of the liquor from the bottle. “And to us making it out alright.”

 

***

 

The plan, as Leia had told her, was simple enough: Leia would be leading a group of Resistance fighters down to the planet’s surface to track down the Knights of Ren and take them out of the fight. They’d be relying on Jessika and her squadron to keep the First Order ships from shooting them out of the sky before they even made it into atmosphere.

 

Leia, Poe, and everyone with them were depending on Jessika and her ships. It was Jessika’s second mission as commander of a squadron. If Poe were there, instead of heading out on a dangerous planet-side mission, he would have clapped her on the back and told her, “No pressure!” Since he wasn’t there, she thought it to herself.

 

Jessika gripped the arms of her chair tightly, watching as the ten First Order ships came into view. “Hold steady,” she said, ostensibly to her bridge crew, but also to herself. 

 

Her squadron, such as it was, was made up of her flagship, which was a slightly larger carrier ship with room for a bridge crew of twenty-four, and six accompanying single-pilot fighters. They would be hard-pressed to defeat the First Order squadron, but she still had hope that they wouldn’t have to. 

 

Leia’s orders had been to hail the First Order ships from outside of weapons’ range. If all went well, Leia had said, the squadron would be unprepared to fight and in a state of chaos. As they hung in space in formation, dark against the stars, Jessika couldn’t help but think that they didn’t look unready. Her heart was in her throat. 

 

When they were just within comms range but too far away for the enemy to shoot them down without coming closer, she ordered her pilot to stop and sent the order through her squadron. She nodded to her communications officer and he signaled that he’d started the broadcast. 

 

She took a breath to steady herself and began. “First Order squadron,” she said in a voice as close to Leia’s tone of calm, self-assured command as she could get, “this is Captain Pava.” As Leia had ordered, she didn’t identify herself as Resistance, but didn’t bother to pretend to be First Order, either. “You have been ordered to stand down and leave this system. You have two minutes to comply.”

 

She killed the transmission and leaned forward in her chair, body tense. “Do you have the jump calculated?” she muttered to the pilot, not looking away from the view screen. 

 

“Calculated and transmitted to all the fighters,” he answered. Jessika nodded in acknowledgment. 

 

They hung suspended for what felt like eternity, waiting. If her bridge crew and her pilots were anything like her, Jessika reflected, they all felt like their skin was crawling and their hearts were about to beat out of their chests. 

 

When it happened, it happened all at once, and took her breath away after the agonizing stillness. With thirty seconds to go before the deadline she’d set, three of the First Order ships suddenly broke ranks and raced away from the others, trying to get enough distance to safely jump. The lead ship of the squadron turned and rocketed after them, its shots overtaking and destroying one of the deserters. Before it could fire again, the other two disappeared as they made their hyperspace jump. In the confusion, three more ships set off in the opposite direction and made a jump of their own. The rest remained, in indecision. 

 

Her ship was already humming with the hyperdrive’s power-up sequence as Jessika opened a line with all of her pilots and ordered, “All units, make your jump and pick your target. Fire at will!”

 

Her squadron made the short hyperspace jump in unison, emerging just within weapons’ range of the scattered enemy ships and immediately opening fire. In the end, the battle itself was over so quickly that Jessika couldn’t have given any orders to change the outcome. The four First Order ships were destroyed. None of her ships took more than minimal damage. 

 

“Orders, Captain?” the pilot of her flagship asked, turning in his seat to look at her. 

 

“Let’s get into a wing formation and take up a stationary orbit over the ruins on the planet’s surface,” Jessika answered. “And we’ll wait until we’re needed, and hope the people down there can pull this off.”

 

***

 

The plan had seemed simple enough, at least from Phasma’s perspective. That, of course, didn’t mean that there weren’t a thousand things that could go wrong and kill them all. 

 

They would land on the planet’s surface in the Millennium Falcon, which was simple: Phasma had nothing to do with the flying of the ship and couldn’t prevent it from crashing if it came to that. They were relying on the Resistance pilots to keep the First Order pilots from shooting them down, which was also simple: Phasma had no control over the space battle and could only sit in her jump seat aboard the Falcon and try to keep her mind on the future. 

 

Then, if they survived that, they would split into pairs, each with at least one Force user, and canvas the ruins on the surface for their enemies. General Organa had very casually explained that Zosma and Errai would be split up, and though Errai had bristled, Zosma had simply nodded. Phasma was a bit surprised that the same suggestion hadn’t been applied to herself and Armitage; at this point, with the appearance of the Resistance reinforcements, it was impossible to argue that this was anything other than a Resistance operation, with some First Order personnel along for the ride. She could tell that Armitage was already planning for the fact that they’d have to make a quick escape from their former, temporary allies when this was done.

 

But Phasma would be with Armitage, and although there would be more decisions for her to make, more factors to evaluate, that was simple, too, when it came down to it. She would protect Armitage, as she had been doing for years, and she would kill her enemies, as she had been doing almost all her life. 

 

She waited beside Armitage in the Millennium Falcon’s jump seats, looking over the older-model voltage baton that General Organa had scrounged up for her from the weapons store on the transport to replace the one she’d lost on Mustafar. She thought it was probably as outdated as the blaster they’d found her to replace the one she’d lost on the nameless planet where they’d found the Knights of Ren. She really needed to stop misplacing her weapons.

 

Armitage, watching her run her hands over the baton and familiarize herself with its controls and moving parts, shook his head ruefully. “Those look like they’re fifteen years old, at least. It’s got to be a sign of the ingenuity of the Resistance that they’ve managed to do as much as they have with such inferior equipment.”

 

“Not everything that’s old is inferior,” Phasma said patiently. If it were up to Armitage, no one would use a weapon that hadn’t been made the year before; he couldn’t stop himself from fiddling with any schematics he came across. “Some things just work. Yes, I think this will do nicely.”

 

“Are you sure?” Armitage asked. “I think I’m capable of defending myself pretty well with the Force by now. Probably. You could trade blasters with me, I still have one developed by the First Order.”

 

She turned to face him, so that he could see her looking more confident than she felt. “It’s fine, Armitage. I’ll be just fine with what I have.”

 

They all jolted slightly in their seats as the Falcon broke the atmosphere, and they could hear the engines throttling down as they started moving slower and quieter, floating gracefully down to the planet’s surface. They touched down lightly; Chewbacca flew his ship well.

 

The hatch juddered open and Phasma slung her baton across her back and took a deep breath, rolling her shoulders under her armor. “Let’s go,” she said to Armitage, watching as the Resistance members trooped off the ship, all except Rose and Chewbacca, who were still in the cockpit. 

 

“Just a moment,” Armitage said, cocking his head. “The engines are making a strange sound, there must be some modification to the cool-down. I’ll be right back.” He touched her shoulder reassuringly and ducked back into the ship, toward the cockpit. 

 

Phasma rolled her eyes but couldn’t keep from smiling as she headed out into the watery sunlight. Chewbacca had chosen to put the ship down in a small bowl between stony hills pockmarked with little outcroppings and overhangs. Phasma approved; it was a good place to hide either a ship or a person. The Resistance members were already heading to the top of the nearest hill, and she followed them. 

 

She had almost caught up with them when Zosma Ren stiffened and shouted, “A trap!”

 

At almost the same moment, the noise of a ship’s engine became audible, and First Order ship that Phasma recognized rocketed up out of the tree line a few miles off and sped toward them. 

 

“It’s Ren!” Phasma shouted.

 

“Which Ren?” Rey snapped. 

 

“Kylo,” Zosma Ren answered for her, hand on her lightsaber. 

 

_Armitage_ , Phasma thought, and turned back toward the Falcon. Apparently, those aboard were already aware of Kylo Ren’s approach, because the Falcon’s engines roared back to life and the ship jumped back into the air with considerably less grace than when it had touched down. With a scream of displaced air, the Falcon angled itself toward Kylo. 

 

_They’re going to draw off her fire_ , Phasma thought, numb with sudden dread. _There you go Armitage, now you’re in an aerial firefight, are you happy?_  

 

Chewbacca was showing his skill; the Falcon moved through the air with much more agility than Kylo’s ship. As they watched, the needle-like black ship twisted, ungainly in the air, and pointed its nose back the way it had come, back toward where Phasma and the others were standing. At the same time, it opened up with a spray of laser fire.

 

Phasma made a wordless, animal sound of anger as she saw one of the shots cleave across the bottom of the Falcon, leaving a streak of red-hot metal and a stream of smoke. From this distance, she couldn’t tell if the engines had been hit, but a moment later, the Falcon banked and began heading for the ground, vanishing behind a rocky hill and leaving only the smear of smoke against the sky. 

 

“Oh no, oh no,” Finn was saying, his voice cracking. 

 

Phasma pulled herself up off the ground, ready to run for the Falcon, but General Organa’s voice stopped her. “It’s coming for us!” she shouted. The ship had kept going in the same direction, heading back in their direction as it tried to describe a wide turn against the drag of the atmosphere. Phasma could feel the crackle in the air as the ship’s weapons prepared to fire again.

 

“Get down!” Phasma shouted and threw herself at the most mission-critical strategic target. She picked General Organa bodily off the ground and ducked under an outcropping of rock, shoving the General to the ground and arching her own armored body over her as a shield. She heard Finn, Rey, Poe, and the two Knights scrambling for cover, as well, and hoped that they could find somewhere safe enough, but there wasn’t time to worry about more than one objective. 

 

The whine of the ship’s engines increased in volume until they were a roar, and the ear-splitting bark of its guns seemed to coincide perfectly with the tremendous shaking of the ground and the rumble of the rocks around them. Luckily, Phasma had chosen her shelter well, and the overhand sheltered them enough that they were only struck by a couple of light rocks, the larger stones bouncing to the side, piling up or rolling away. Phasma ducked her head, trying to avoid being hit in the head by anything.

 

Through the ringing in her ears, Phasma thought she could hear the ship circling over head, then the sound of its engines fading. Phasma shook her head to clear it and looked down at General Organa, who was already pushing herself up onto her elbows and blinking the grit and debris from her eyes. “Are you alright, sir?” Phasma asked, rolling away from her. 

 

General Organa nodded. “Thanks to you, Captain,” she said. “Is everyone else alright?”

 

Finn and Poe raised their hands in acknowledgment, but Rey didn’t respond. She was up on her hands and knees, staring toward where the Falcon went down and concentrating.

 

“They’re alive, they’re all alive,” Rey said at last, breathlessly. Her words reduced Phasma’s own feeling of not getting enough air, but they all watched in dawning horror as Kylo wheeled, apparently assuming they had been killed, and turned back toward the plume of smoke they could see nearby.

 

Finn, Rey, and Poe leaped from their hiding places and took off after the ship like they were entering hyperspace, and Phasma shot after them, her heart in her throat.

 

***

 

Rose hung back in the cockpit of the Falcon, watching Chewbacca power the ship down and put it into standby, so they could get it running again quickly if this mission turned into a disaster. 

 

“Did you add a modification to the engine relays?” Hux asked from behind her. Apparently he had hung back, too. She turned to give him a disbelieving look. Was he really able to think about something like that at a moment like this? They were about to go into battle. “What?” Hux asked testily. “It’s a simple enough question.”

 

Chewbacca opened his mouth to answer, though Rose doubted that Hux would be able to understand. Before he could say anything, all three of them looked up in alarm through the Falcon’s viewscreen at the sky. They’d all heard the buzzing whine of a ship’s engine. 

 

The ship, when it came into view, was skimming dangerously close to the ground, and was obviously First Order. 

 

“Fuck, that’s Kylo Ren!” Hux shouted, just as Chewbacca roared and yanked at the controls. The Falcon’s engines gave an alarming noise of protest, but it wrenched itself into the air, sending Hux falling to the floor. 

 

“Get into a seat!” Rose yelled to him.

 

“We left the others behind!” he shouted back, hauling himself into one of the cockpits back seats and strapping in.

 

“They’re sitting ducks there,” Rose responded. “We can draw Kylo’s fire…”

 

As if to prove her point, she was cut off by an jarring impact against the shields that made her slam her teeth together. The Falcon tilted, but Chewbacca trilled something like a coaxing command through his gritted teeth and pulled back on the controls with all his strength, righting the ship. 

 

He gave a complicated series of howls and Rose nodded and started unbuckling her harness. 

 

“What did he say?” Hux asked.

 

“He’s going to lead him away from the others on the ground,” Rose said, getting up from her seat. “He needs someone in the gun pod, and…”

 

The ship rocked again, and Rose lost her balance. Hux leaned forward as far as his harness would allow and caught her before she hit the ground. Chewbacca turned to look at her with wide, alarmed eyes and growled that the gun pod was gone.

 

“Gone?” Rose asked. 

 

He made a slicing motion with a big paw. The last shot must have penetrated the shields and blown the gun pod right off. Rose felt a chill at the thought of what would have happened to her if she’d been inside it when that happened. 

 

“Get back in your seat,” Hux said irritable, pushing her back upright. “So, what, we have no weapons now? Sooner or later the shields will fail, we’re dead if we stay in the air.”

 

“He’s right, we have to take her down,” Rose said, rebuckling her harness. Chewbacca nodded and spiraled the Falcon into an evasive descent.

 

Chewbacca managed to wrestle the Falcon into a controlled landing and, as soon as she was safely on the ground, redirected all power to the shields. The impact of Kylo’s next shots rattled them and knocked Rose painfully against the panel at her side, but didn’t penetrate or cause anymore damage. A moment later, they heard Kylo’s engines whine as he passed over them, then retreat into the distance.

 

Rose hit the button to lower the Falcon’s hatch and stumbled out, expecting Kylo’s ship to be right on top of them, but it was making a great curving arc through the air, back in the direction they’d come.

 

“The others,” Rose gasped, staring after the ship. 

 

“We can’t help them now,” Hux shouted, scanning the horizon. “It’ll be coming around again soon. What the hell are we going to do?”

 

Chewbacca gave a roar that she struggled to interpret through her edge of hysteria. Something about weapons. Something about big weapons.

 

“We don’t have any big weapons!” she yelled back. 

 

“Wait!” Hux cried, and ran back up the ramp into the ship. A moment later he was running back down to the ground again, struggling to hold the massive orbital cannon in his arms. “We can shoot him down with this!”

 

Rose looked at him in disbelief. Chewie made a sound to indicate the idea of something being in the wrong place. Rose nodded agreement at him. “It’s designed to fire from space,” she protested. “It can’t fire in atmosphere.”

 

“It’s not that it can’t, it’s that it won’t,” Hux huffed, setting the cannon down and tumbling to the ground after it, out of breath. “I know this machine, trust me. It has the capability to fire in atmosphere, but it will overheat and short out if it does, so it has a blocker installed so that it won’t prime unless it’s in a vacuum. If we can remove the blocker, we can get one or two shots out of it before it overheats.”

 

Chewbacca trilled his excitement and Rose felt the relief of having something to do, even if it had a slim hope of working. She yanked her toolkit off her belt and set it on the ground in front of the cannon, pulling it open. “Show me how to get into this thing, then,” she said, pulling out her favorite wire cutters and soldering iron. “We’ve only got a couple minutes, tops.” 

 

“Do you have something to unscrew this panel?” Hux said, pointing. 

 

With an impatient sound, Chewbacca pushed him out of the way, dug his claws into the gap around the edges of the panel, and yanked it off with a scream of tearing metal. He tossed the bent and broken panel over his shoulder and Rose ducked under his arm to peek into the interior of the cannon. 

 

Hux joined her, looking back at Chewbacca with his face pale. “Well, that’s one way to do it.”

 

“We’re in a hurry,” Rose said. “Where’s the blocker?”

 

Hux reached his gloved hands into the guts of the cannon, feeling around and furrowing his brow in concentration. “Here,” he said, and with a grunt of effort he dislodged a circuit board and pulled it out into the light, complete with accompanying wires. “We’ve just got to remove the blocker and reattach the wires, connect the activation circuits to the weapons circuits bypassing the atmosphere detection systems.”

 

“Got it,” Rose said. She and Chewbacca leaned over the machinery, looking for the best place to begin.

 

“Give me the soldering iron,” Hux snapped, and she passed them to him. She eyed the machinery critically as he bent to his work.

 

Chewbacca made a sound, and Rose frowned. “He’s right,” she said. “Not like that. Here, give it back, I know a better way.”

 

Hux looked unconvinced. “I’ve seen the design specifications for this weapon…”

 

“And I’ve been looking at circuit boards since I can remember!” Rose snapped, impatient and panicky. “And Chewie’s been doing it even longer! We know what we’re doing! Give me back the iron and trust me!”

 

Time seemed to be slipping by too quickly, and Rose wondered if they were going to have to physically fight Hux on this. His jaw was set stubbornly and his eyes were narrowed.

 

In the end, although it seemed to take forever, it only took Hux a couple seconds to nod and push the circuit board into Rose’s hands. “Do it, then,” he said. 

 

Carefully, Rose added the solder to melt what was already there, then wicked all the plasma solder out, delicately pulling the wires free and disconnecting the blocker from the circuit board. She let out a breath of relief as she examined what was left and determined that she hadn’t damaged anything. 

 

“I think that did it,” she said.

 

“Give it back, then,” Hux said urgently. “Your arms are too short and his hands are too big. I’ll get it reattached.”

 

Rose nodded and handed it over, and Hux pushed his hands, then his arms into the machine, resting his face against the metal as he focused.

 

Rose watched, tense, as Hux screwed up his face in concentration, moving the circuits around by feel beyond their view. For a second, nothing happened, and Rose felt a flash of panic that they’d been wrong. Chewbacca gave a soft warning call, and Rose looked up to see that Kylo’s ship had come back into view. Her heart leaped as she wondered if Finn, Rey, and Poe were still alive.

 

Then the cannon hummed at a frequency just a little bit lower than the returning ship. The hum built and built and built and became a buzz loud enough to make Rose’s brain feel like it was rattling.

 

“I think it’s working!” Hux shouted over the sound, still shoulder-deep in the guts of the machine. A moment later, Chewbacca gave a howl of alarm, grabbed Hux by the back of his coat, and yanked him backwards so that his arms came free, pinwheeling as he tried to keep his balance. 

 

It was not a moment too soon. The buzz became an earsplitting shriek, a rush of heat tore through the cannon and made Rose’s face feel like it was sizzling slightly, the metal of its shell rattled and hissed, and first one, then a second sizzling bolt of laser fire erupted from the cannon’s mouth. 

 

Rose fell onto her back, her ears ringing, and stared up at the sky as Kylo’s ship banked in a fruitless attempt to evade the bolts. The first took out one engine and the second clipped a wing. The ship spun, tilted, and began to fall.

 

***

 

“Yes!” Hux shouted, jumping to his feet and watching the ship tumble toward the ground, the remaining engines firing as Kylo tried desperately to control his descent. He stumbled as he tried to get his legs under him, his head still spinning with the sound, heat, and peripheral impact of the cannon firing, but he couldn’t keep a triumphant grin off his face as the Knight’s ship went down.

 

And then the ship fired a last few shots in their direction before hitting the ground.

 

In a flash of memory, Hux thought of the battle droids he’d fought with Poe, and how he’d blocked their attacks. But there were no convenient shields nearby, this time, and besides, the ship’s weaponry could tear through pretty much anything he could find on an uninhabited planet to throw in front of it. It was hopeless. He was about to die, along with Rose and Chewbacca.

 

Even thought it was hopeless, he threw up his hands and reached for the Force anyway, by instinct, because he didn’t want to die, damn it. And somewhere in the depths of his mind, he found a cold, burning anger. 

 

_Not today_ , he thought, throwing his entire mind, his entire body, it felt like, into taking hold of the Force. _Not here_. 

 

With a jarring wrench that he felt in every muscle and every neuron, the three enormous glowing jags of laser fire stopped, hanging in the air.

 

“Whoa,” he heard Rose breathe behind him. 

 

He would be inclined to agree, but he was very quickly realizing that this salvation was unsustainable. The momentum of the blasts was pushing against him with such strength that his feet were sliding backward on the ground. Sweat was breaking out on his face and it felt like he couldn’t quite fill his lungs. He wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long. 

 

“Go,” he choked out to Rose and Chewbacca. “Get out of range, run, run!”

 

He heard their movements behind him but he couldn’t look back, he couldn’t move or think and his hold was slipping…

 

Abruptly, someone else was there. His wavering control was shored up by minds that he recognized as belonging to Rey and Finn, and then two more, unfamiliar, that he realized had to be Zosma and Errai. He gasped as he was suddenly able to take a whole breath again, and his shoulders slumped in relief as the enormous laser bolts shuddered, trembled, and rocketed backward, away from the ground and up into the atmosphere. He dropped his hands when they stopped pushing against him, their momentum reversed and their course set for outer space.

 

_You’ve got friends, don’t worry_ , someone, he thought probably Finn, said in his mind. He was too caught up in the realization that he wasn’t going to die to think too hard about that.

 

He also found it difficult to think hard when Phasma came rocketing from behind Rey and Finn and crashed into him hard enough to knock the wind out of him, holding him tightly close to her.

 

General Organa cleared her throat, and the small sound was enough to bring all eyes to her. “Well,” she said, “I think it’s safe to say that Kylo Ren, at least, knows we’re here,” General Organa said.

 

Zosma Ren ducked her head. “I was trying to mask us, Errai and I, but he must have sensed us anyway. He knows the feeling of our minds as well as we know his.”

 

“I’m not looking for someone to blame,” General Organa answered. “I’m just thinking about the next step. Did Kylo survive the crash? Can you tell?”

 

Zosma nodded decisively. “He’s alive. I know he is. He’s injured, but only slightly. He’s heading for the ruins to find Vega and her people.”

 

“We may have lost the element of surprise,” General Organa said, “but we haven’t lost the necessity of pressing the attack here, when they’re distracted. We should go ahead with the plan. Unless there are any objections?” 

 

No one said anything. 

 

“Good,” General Organa said. “Then let’s get to the ruins.”   

 

The place they’d come down wasn’t far from the ruins, but the ground was rocky and broken up, and it was difficult going.  

 

At last, they came over the crown of a hill, and a plain carpeted in soft-looking, short yellow grass opened up ahead. The ruins stood before them, made of stone and dug into the soft ground so that they looked low and flat like a bomb shelter. At either end of the facade were large, stately-looking entrances, and halfway between them was a smaller door. 

 

“Right,” General Organa said, taking control effortlessly. Rey, Rose, Zosma, and Errai, take the right entrance. Split up into two groups as soon as you come to a fork in the hallway. General Hux, Captain Phasma, Chewbacca, and I will do the same to the left. Finn and Poe, take the middle. Make sure the Force users stay in contact with each other and be careful, everyone. If you walk into anything you can’t handle, call for help _immediately_.”

 

“We shouldn’t let them separate us, Zo,” Hux heard Errai mutter nervously. 

 

“It is what it is, little brother,” Zosma said back, her voice softer and gentler than Hux had ever heard it. “We’ll get through.”

 

“Let’s go,” General Organa said, her face unreadable, and nothing further was said. They were all too tense, too ready. 

 

Hux and Phasma headed for the left-most entrance. General Organa and Chewbacca walked beside them in silence until the came to a split in the hallway. Hux nodded to them and said, “Good luck.”

 

“Wait a moment General, Captain,” General Organa said quietly. She and Chewbacca glanced at each other, as if for reassurance. 

 

“What is it?” Hux asked suspiciously. 

 

“Captain, I’d like to tell you that I appreciate you protecting me during Kylo’s attack,” General Organa said. 

 

“Of course,” Phasma answered, carefully. 

 

“I’ve already given the Resistance squadron in orbit their orders,” General Organa continued. “Those orders are to capture or, failing that, shoot down any First Order ship leaving the planet’s surface. It wouldn’t make sense, from a military perspective, to qualify or make exceptions to that order, regardless of my personal perspective. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

 

Hux set his jaw, feeling walls closing in around him. “I believe I do.”

 

General Organa nodded. “Good. The squadron will be traveling in formation and staying in a stationary orbit above us. Just in case. What they’ll gain in safety, they’ll lose in maneuverability and intercept speed. It’ll risk a ship getting through their net, but that’s a risk I was willing to take to avoid losing any more people. Today and only today, I’ll trust you to know what you want to do with that information.”

 

The surprise of the statement made Hux’s mind still for a second, then speed up again as he made plans. “I see,” he said. “I appreciate the information, General.”

 

“Good luck on your search, General,” General Organa replied, and she and Chewbacca moved away down the right-hand corridor and deeper into the ruins.

 

***

 

Rey kept stealing looks at Zosma Ren as they moved through cautiously through the ruins. Rey, at least, was moving cautiously; Zosma walked upright, the hand on her lightsaber seeming almost casual, looking around her as if she was on vacation rather than looking for a fight to the death. 

 

Rey couldn’t help wondering what the Knight was thinking, and she carefully reached out to the other woman’s mind, trying to stay unobtrusive and under Zosma’s radar. 

 

_Keep your eyes on the enemy, Jedi_ , Zosma’s voice in her head was clear. Rey frowned and drew her mind back, focusing it instead on trying to locate Kylo. While they’d been practicing Zosma’s counters, Rey had asked Hux to show her how he’d located all of them aboard the ship, and she repurposed that method, casting her consciousness wider and keeping her touch lighter. She wasn’t sure how she’d know when she found him, and was a little worried about drawing his attention, but she was ready to use every possible weapon in her arsenal. 

 

Then she sensed him, so suddenly that it took her by surprise. She pulled her mind back, trying not to tip him off, but she could still tell he was there, away in front of her through the labyrinth of hallways and rooms, a roil of anger like the flow from a volcano. She took a moment to figure out where he was and choose her direction. She set off down the right hall, but Zosma didn’t follow her. Instead, she moved into a narrow side corridor, dark and windowless. 

 

“What are you doing?” Rey asked.

 

“I can sense Vega,” Zosma answered. “She’s this way.”

 

“But Kylo Ren is in this direction,” Rey said. “Can’t you feel that?” 

 

“We’re going this way,” Zosma said decisively. “Or I am, at least. I intend to be the one who meets Vega Ren. I have a mission and I mean to see it through.”

 

“Well, _my_ mission is to take care of Kylo Ren,” Rey shot back. “That’s the first priority.” She considered adding that Zosma was her prisoner, but she didn’t think it would sway the Knight very much. Zosma hadn’t slowed down, and had continued down the hallway in the wrong direction despite Rey’s words.

 

“Then go after him,” Zosma said, not even turning around as she strode away. “Your choices are your own.”

 

Rey grit her teeth, wanting to argue, but Zosma was getting farther away by the second. She shook her head and made her decision. She didn’t have time to make this a fight, and Vega would have to be dealt with at some point anyway. She set off after Zosma, tense with irritation. She would take Vega first, and trust the others to be able to handle Kylo if they met him.

 

Rey couldn’t tell if it was because she was unhappy with the chain of events or if she was feeling something dangerous through the Force, but the farther they walked down the corridor, the more she felt a prickle of unease along her spine. Something halfway between watchfulness and dread was fluttering through her mind.

 

“Do they know where we are?” Rey asked in a hushed voice. “Do they know we’re coming?” She couldn’t shake the sense of being observed.

 

Zosma cocked her head, thinking without breaking stride. “I don’t think so,” she said. Rey wondered if she was too focused on her mission to consider the question properly, and rested her hand on the hilt of her lightsaber.

 

As they came to a bend in the hallway, Rey became half convinced that, despite the fact that she didn’t hear any movement ahead, they would find enemies just out of sight. They turned a corner into a broad, high-ceilinged room with walls that had once been carved but had worn away. It was completely empty of anything, whether debris or furniture or people. Irritated with herself, Rey strode out into the room, Zosma at her side, heading for the door at the far side.   

 

“Oh,” Zosma said, and stopped short.

 

Rey stopped, too. “What, what is it?” she asked nervously.

 

Zosma smiled wryly. “He got me. Clever work.”

 

Before Rey could ask her what she meant, she became aware that they weren’t alone in the room. Somehow she had failed to notice that there were two figures standing right in front of them, so tall they filled the room from floor to ceiling, black as twisting shadows all the way through and completely faceless. They had no eyes, but she knew they were watching her, and they gave off a feeling of such cruel malice that she felt cold and trembly. And then she seemed to lose her grip on reality.

 

The room tilted on its axis, twisting and telescoping around her, and Rey was overtaken by a wave of vertigo. She struggled to stay upright, even as all her senses told her that she was defying gravity by doing so. She tried to put a hand against the wall, hoping the feel of the stone would ground her, but her senses had been mixed up, and somehow the roughness of stone on skin had been replaced by the sight of flashing, strobing colors and a disconcerting chiming, humming sound.

 

_It’s an illusion, it’s Saiph_ , Zosma’s voice threaded through her mind. _Counter it, quickly_. 

 

Rey concentrated, remembering what Zosma and Errai had told her to do. She drew her consciousness in and then threw it outward evenly, like the expansion of a star, quicker than the illusion could compensate for, stretching the boundaries of the illusion until it tore apart and evaporated.

 

Her field of vision shimmered like a heat haze and reset jarringly. When the shimmer cleared, the room was back to normal, and she could make out the two Knights standing in front of them, no longer enormous and faceless, but human instead. 

 

Saiph was standing in front of his commander, turned to present the smallest target possible. As Zosma struck back at him with the Force and he had to bat the attack aside, he opened his mouth in a startled cry that was completely silent, and Rey noticed that he had a thin surgical scar across his throat. 

 

Behind him, Vega looked as if she might once have been stocky and barrel-chested, but had become withered and thin, her cheeks hollow and her wrists and ungloved hands, where they protruded from her robes, looking like the skin had been painfully stretched over the bone. Her eyes were fever-bright, her lips pulled back from her teeth in a perpetual snarl, and although she wasn’t any older than Zosma, her hair, which was as black as Rose’s, was going white at the roots. She looked seriously ill, but Rey knew better than to underestimate her because of it.

 

But Vega didn’t attack right away. She hesitated, and Saiph looked back at her, waiting for her order. Rey wondered if Vega’s physical weakness was worse than it appeared, whether she was unsure of her ability to win in hand-to-hand combat.

 

“Vega,” Zosma said softly.

 

“Zosma,” Vega replied, loudly. Her voice crackled from disuse and sounded strained and painful. “Retreat. You’re not going to win this fight. You don’t owe Kylo anything.”

 

“It’s not Kylo that I owe,” Zosma said, perfectly calm, “and I’m not going anywhere. Not until this is over. You’re not getting out of this without fighting me, Vega.”

 

Vega, bizarrely, looked away from Zosma, as if she couldn’t meet her eyes, then abruptly gave a howl of rage and swung her lightsaber at the floor, carving a trench through the stone and sending sharp flecks in all directions. Rey gasped, startled, and took a step back despite herself. Zosma didn’t move, just raised her own lightsaber higher.

 

“Kill them, Saiph,” Vega hissed, quiet and still again, barely above a whisper. “We have to kill them.”

 

At the words, Saiph seemed to go, if possible, even more still. Rey flitted toward his mind through the Force, afraid that he might be preparing an attack, but she found only more stillness, a cold and empty quiet.

 

Zosma, to Rey’s complete surprise, actually smiled at Saiph. “You aren’t going to follow that order, are you?”

 

Saiph cocked his head, listening. Vega looked at him with a furious, wild expression, but still she hesitated. Still she seemed unwilling to enter the fight herself.

 

“I know you, I know what you want,” Zosma said, talking quickly but evenly, her voice level. Vega Ren shifted uneasily, and Rey tightened her grip on her lightsaber. “You want us all to survive. You’re here because you think she can protect us all better than Kylo can, right?”

 

“Saiph,” Vega growled, narrowing her eyes and taking a step forward. Rey sensed the movement in her mind, as if she was preparing a Force attack, and she sent a warning spike in the Knight’s direction. Vega stepped back again, looking at Rey in surprise. 

 

Zosma didn’t even look at them, just held Saiph’s eyes. “But this isn’t the only way. We don’t have to do this, we can find another way.”

 

“Saiph,” Vega said again, warningly, in her harsh voice. Saiph glanced at her, but then looked back at Zosma, and his lightsaber wavered slightly, his body unfolding from its tense crouch just the littlest bit.

 

“Saiph,” Zosma repeated, reaching a hand out to him. “Saiph, trust me. You know you can.” Rey could tell that they were communicating through the Force, that something powerful and spiky with emotion was passing between them, but she couldn’t break in to see the words. 

 

Whatever it was, though, it seemed to work. Saiph nodded and lowered his lightsaber, and with a click extinguished it. 

 

Vega snarled and, with a flick of her wrist, sent Saiph flying, striking the wall and slumping to the floor. 

 

It was as if Zosma, cold and calm Zosma who had kept her feelings under so many wraps, had been electrified. She screamed wordlessly, her lips drawn back from her teeth and her eyes wild. One hand drew and ignited her lightsaber, while the other pointed toward Vega and launched an attack with the Force strong enough that the periphery made Rey’s blood run cold, and Vega had to throw up both hands to catch and deflect it. 

 

Then Zosma was on her, swinging her lightsaber in tight, powerful arcs. Vega could do no more than parry them; Zosma was moving to quickly and too aggressively for her to counterattack. Zosma’s anger and despair seemed to have taken over her use of the Force, had become almost a living thing, attacking alongside Zosma and flattening the astonished Vega before she could gather her own strength. Rey ignited her lightsaber, but they were moving too quickly for her to join the battle; she could just as easily hit Zosma as Vega. Instead, she used the Force to parry aside Vega’s mental attacks before they could reach Zosma.

 

With one last strike, it was over: Zosma knocked Vega’s lightsaber from her hand, it hit the wall and extinguished itself, and Zosma’s power forced Vega to her knees, staring up in defiance at the red glow of Zosma’s saber as it hovered, ready to end her.

 

The two Knights hung suspended like that, staring each other down, until Zosma’s fierce, enraged expression twitched and began to fall, leaving her looking anguished and horrified. 

 

With quick, sharp movements, Zosma extinguished her lightsaber, reached down to grab Vega’s arm and yank her to her feet, then flipped her lightsaber around and pressed the hilt into Vega’s hand, stepping close to her until the blade guard was pressed against her own chest. 

 

“There, now,” she said quietly. “There. Now you can do what you need to.”

 

Rey watched in frozen shock, not knowing what she should do. Vega seemed just as surprised. 

 

“Is this really what you want?” Zosma asked. “You really want to be Lord Ren? Then you’ll have to kill me, because I will never stop trying to help you.”

 

Vega’s grip on the lightsaber tightened, but she didn’t ignite it. 

 

Zosma leaned in a little more, her face very close to Vega’s. “I will never stop trying, do you understand? All this time we’ve been apart, after everything _he_ made us do, I’ve never stopped thinking about you. Please listen to me.”

 

Vega didn’t say anything, but her head tilted. Rey thought she was listening intently. 

 

“Look what it did to Ben, being Lord Ren. Being Kylo. Look what it turned him into. It’ll do the same to you.”

 

Vega moved as if to pull away, but Zosma held onto her shoulder, her voice cracking as she said, “Please, Mihai.” At the name, Vega froze, her eyes widening. “Please. Look at us. Look at what has happened to us. This isn’t what we were meant to be. Mihai, please. Is this really what you want?”

 

Vega tensed, her grip on the lightsaber tightening again, and Rey lifted her own saber, her breath catching in her throat. Then Vega seemed, abruptly, to crumble, her shoulders slumping and her legs trembling and her hand falling away from the lightsaber. Zosma caught it and threw it to one side as if it was nothing more than garbage, caught Vega’s shoulders and slumped with her to the ground. 

 

“Rua,” Vega said, in a soft, clear voice, leaning her forehead against Zosma’s. 

 

“Mihai,” Zosma answered, her voice almost reverent. The two of them closed their eyes and held on to each other silently. Rey didn’t even try to see decipher was moving between their minds; she figured that it had been a long time since someone had given them the gift of privacy. 

 

But she saw when Zosma reached carefully into Vega’s mind and did something complicated. Vega smiled slightly and let Zosma gently guide her mind down into deep, almost comatose sleep. Zosma lowered Vega to lie flat on the floor, brushing delicately at her hair.

 

Rey put out and sheathed her lightsaber and crossed the room to Saiph Ren. She knelt beside him and put her hand against his neck, feeling for a pulse at the same time she reached toward his mind with her own. He stirred slightly at her touch, his mind fluttering, confused and sluggish but intact. She sent a feeling of peace and safety at him, and he opened his unfocused eyes and looked at her. 

 

_Everything will be different now, won’t it?_ he thought clearly in her direction. She nodded and glanced toward Zosma and Vega, or maybe Rua and Mihai. Saiph followed her gaze and sighed.

 

“Will you let me?” Rey asked softly, and reached into his mind, mirroring Zosma’s motions. He nodded, and she tugged him into a sleep of his own. For a second, everything was perfectly still.

 

The stillness was torn up by a howl of alarm slicing through the Force at them, followed by a shock of pain. Zosma looked up, face a mask of fear, and shouted, “Errai!”

 

“Rose,” Rey whispered, her heart suddenly pounding.

 

***

 

Rose and Errai Ren had moved through the half-demolished halls of the ruined base, both tense and on high alert. Rose kept one eye on her surroundings and one eye on Errai, whose hand hovered perpetually over his lightsaber.

 

Suddenly, Errai stood up straight, eyes wide and scarred jaw clenched. He turned back the way they came and immediately took off at a half-run. 

 

Rose struggled to keep up with his longer strides. “What?” she asked. “What is it?”

 

“Vega,” he bit out. “Zo and your friend Rey have found her.”

 

Rose felt as if she’d been galvanized, her pace quickening and her hand falling to rest on her blaster. “Are we going to back them up?”

 

“Of course,” Errai growled. “Where the hell else would we be going?”

 

But just as they were coming up to a blind turn in the hallway, he stopped dead, so suddenly that Rose ran into his back. “What?” she asked.

 

“Oh, fuck,” Errai said at the same time. 

 

Something like a low, prowling shadow came around the corner, just as a wave of pressure forced Rose to her knees. She struggled to reach her blaster, gritting her teeth against the sudden throbbing in her head and the seeming thinness of the air. She heard the ignition of two lightsabers, the snap and flash as the sabers impacted each other, the thrum as they whirled through the air, casting strange shadow patterns on the walls. She finally got a hand on her weapon and drew it, slowly and painstakingly, from its holster. 

 

A scream of pain made her heart jump into her throat, and the pressure suddenly lessened enough that she could stumble to her feet. Errai had fallen to his knees, his extinguished lightsaber hanging from one limp hand as the other clutched a smoking divot taken out of his sword arm. 

 

Standing over him was a tall, gaunt man in the black robes of a Knight of Ren, his mask off and his lightsaber casting red light over his face, highlighting the disturbingly intense stare of his dark, sunken eyes. Rose didn’t give herself time to think about what she was doing, just raised her blaster and fired. 

 

The man moved so quickly that he became nothing more than a blur: one moment he was standing looking down at Errai, directly in the path of her shot, and the next he had turned toward her, crouched and teeth bared, and there was a hole in the wall behind him. The pressure returned, and pain blazed in her hand as the muscles were forced slack, the blaster falling to the ground. 

 

Errai lurched to his feet, gritting his teeth as he forced his injured arm to lift his lightsaber and reignite it, and stepped in front of Rose. The other Knight snarled and stepped toward him, lightsaber held sideways in front of his face. 

 

“Maasym,” Errai choked out. “Maasym, we are brothers in arms! Doesn’t that mean something to you?”

 

Maasym hesitated, his eyes narrowing. Then, with a flick of his hand, he sent Errai and Rose flying. 

 

Rose waited to be slammed against the wall, waited for the crack of her bones breaking, but it didn’t come. Instead, she hit the floor with much less force than she was expecting and skidded to bump against the wall. It almost didn’t even hurt, although it got considerably more painful when Errai landed on top of her. He’d thankfully thought to extinguish his lightsaber before the impact. 

 

When they’d disentangled themselves and gotten to their feet again, Maasym Ren was gone.

 

***

 

Rey skidded around the corner to find Rose alive and unhurt, trying to make a pale and shaking but still protesting Errai move his hand so she could look at a wound on his arm. 

 

“Damn it, I have a basic medkit with me, just let me see,” she was saying in frustration. Rey was so relieved that she almost laughed. 

 

“What happened?” Rey asked, sliding her lightsaber back into her belt. 

 

Errai finally moved his hand, and Rey sucked in a breath at the damage. An enormous chunk had been carved out of his arm, and Errai’s eyes were unfocused, his face almost gray. He was clearly going into shock. 

 

“Oh, hell,” Rose said, fumbling for a liquid bandage and an anti-shock injection. “It was the other Knight, Maasym,” she continued, in answer to Rey’s question. 

 

“Where’s Zo?” Errai slurred. 

 

“Guarding Vega and Saiph,” Rey said moving to Rose’s side to hold Errai’s arm steady as she applied the foaming liquid bandage. 

 

“You have to stop Maasym,” Errai said, struggling for urgency. 

 

“Where is he going?” Rey said. 

 

“To his ship,” Errai answered. The shot appeared to be working, and his expression was sharpening, his words becoming clearer. “I distracted him and his guard was down, and I saw a flash of his plan. Vega left a bomb in orbit over the other side of the planet, one that’s set up to be controlled by the Force. He’s going to get a safe distance away and detonate it. We’ll all be killed.”

 

“Fuck,” Rey swore. “Can you help me tell the others?” she asked Errai.

 

Errai nodded and closed his eyes, swaying slightly on his feet, and suddenly, complete knowledge of Maasym’s plan sprang into her mind, in full concepts rather than simply words. A feeling of alarm came echoing back from Finn, Zosma, Hux, and Leia. 

 

_The squadron?_ Rey thought.

 

_If they’re not Force-sensitive, they won’t be able to stop Maasym from setting off the bomb_ , Zosma thought back. _They’ll just get caught in the explosion_.

 

Finn’s words appeared in her mind a moment later, _Poe and I are closest to the Falcon. He can take me up in it and I can stop Maasym. I’ll take control of the bomb and disarm it._

 

_That ship doesn’t have working weapons. Will you be able to fight Maasym for control of the bomb with just the Force?_ Zosma thought back at him.

 

_I will_ , Finn thought back, fiercely, proudly, _because I’ll have to. You take care of Kylo, let us handle the rest_. Rey felt a wave of love for him. 

 

Rey extricated herself from the wider conversation and crossed the bridge to Finn’s mind, one on one. 

 

_I love you_ , she thought, as clearly and carefully as she could, hoping the words would make it to him. _Be careful and come back, both of you_. 

 

_I love you, too_ , he thought back. _And we will._  


	12. ...the Final Sacrifice

“I have an idea,” Phasma said quietly, as she led Armitage through the winding, narrow hallways of the ruins, carefully not thinking about the fact that there was a bomb over their heads. Focus on the things she could change, ignore everything else. 

 

“Oh?” Armitage asked distantly, concentrating on trying to marshal his Force abilities to feel out the way ahead. 

 

“For when we find Ren. Kylo Ren, I mean. There’s getting to be an awful lot of them.”

 

“How do you know we’ll find him?” Armitage asked.

 

“Of course we will,” Phasma said assuredly. “This was our mission from the start.”

 

Armitage snorted a laugh. “Fine, then,” he said, “what is your idea for when we find him?”

 

“You probably aren’t strong enough in the Force to overcome him one on one,” Phasma said, glancing back at him when they came to a corner. He thought for a moment, then nodded, and she ducked around the corner with her blaster up. When she didn’t encounter anything, she continued walking and talking at the same pace. “I could at least hold my own against him hand to hand, but I have no real way to defend myself against the Force.”

 

“So we’ll do what General Organa suggested, call for help when we encounter him,” Armitage said, playing along. 

 

“Oh, certainly. I’m not stupid enough to suggest we forget about our backup. But what if they’re busy? We have no idea how long it will take the others to get to us.”

 

“Fair point.” Armitage tilted his head and smiled at her. “What do you suggest?”

 

“We can work together,” Phasma answered. “You don’t focus on trying to best him with the Force, just on trying to restrain him. And I’ll be free to fight him without him throwing me across a room. Again. His ability to fight me will be impaired by his having to ward you off, and vice versa.”

 

“You know,” Armitage said, frowning, “that actually stands a chance of working.”

 

“Wish you’d thought of it?” Phasma asked. He rolled his eyes at her and nodded. 

 

She was feeling oddly exhilarated, a buoyancy that she attributed to their near escape from Kylo Ren’s attack from the air. She reminded herself sternly that just because they’d already weathered one storm didn’t mean that they were safe from whatever storm was waiting for them ahead. But she was alive, and she was with Armitage, and she was determined to stay that way. 

 

They came to another bend in the hallway, and she paused, glancing at Armitage. He cocked his head, thought for a moment, and nodded, but before she could step forward around the corner, he took a short, alarmed inhale through his teeth and his hand shot out to rest on her armored shoulder. She froze. 

 

She wanted to ask him if everything was alright, but she didn’t want to make a sound, so she just watched him carefully.

 

Finally, he opened his eyes wide and hissed, “I know where Ren is.”

 

Phasma tensed, then relaxed and nodded. Her good mood vanished into cold calm. It was time to fight again. “Did you alert the others?”

 

He nodded. “Rey is on her way.”

 

“And?”

 

“And we should begin the engagement. We shouldn’t wait. We should try to catch Kylo Ren off balance, avoid him having enough time to plan and gain the upper hand.”

 

Phasma smiled. “My thoughts exactly. Lead on, Armitage.”

 

They moved even more carefully than before, Phasma following just behind Armitage as he felt his way through the Force. 

 

He stopped suddenly and she barely kept herself from running into him. He tilted his head toward the corner in front of them, his entire body tense. She leaned very close to him so that she could keep her whisper just above silence.

 

“Does he know we’re here?” she asked. Armitage shook his head, and Phasma grinned. She unbuckled the string of stun grenades that she had looped under her belt and held it up to show him. His eyes widened in alarm as she whispered, “Can you protect us from these with the Force?”

 

“I… I think so,” he whispered back. 

 

She nodded decisively. “I’ve been wanting to use these. And you fired my cannon without me.”

 

He gave her a very unimpressed look, but she just mouthed _Ready?_ and, when he nodded and squared his shoulders, primed the entire belt of stun grenades, took a few steps forward, whipped the belt around the corner, then darted back to Armitage’s side. 

 

Armitage frowned in concentration, and for a moment, she felt like she was underwater; her sight seemed to bend and sound seemed to be coming from very far away. When the blast from the stun grenades, too big for the walls of the ruins to be much protection, came toward them, it was like being on the observation deck of a ship. The light and crash and flying debris parted to either side of them and swept by without touching them, even as the walls rattled. 

 

“Nice work,” she said to Armitage, and then they were running around the corner and getting ready for the imminent possibility of their deaths. 

 

On the other side was a wide, low-ceilinged room, and in the center of it was Ren, his helmet off and his face set in a pained grimace. Armitage peeled away from her and took up a position with his back against the wall, hands raised as if the Force was something that had to be physically manipulated, and Phasma drew her voltage baton and sized up her enemy. 

 

Ren must have been able to get a Force shield of his own up in the split second before the grenades went off, given that he wasn’t flat on his back with blood coming from shattered eardrums, but the blast had an effect and he looked disoriented. His lightsaber was in his hand but not ignited. Phasma swung her baton around and pressed the attack. The situation wouldn’t get any better until the others arrived. 

 

Phasma couldn’t deny that Ren intimidated her. His unpredictability, the brutality of his orders, struck her as dangerous, and he wasn’t without his own personal skill as a hand-to-hand fighter. It was tempting to let herself be afraid as she attacked him. 

 

It was even more tempting when he moved almost faster than she could follow, igniting his lightsaber and swinging it in a low path toward her rib cage, and when she got her baton down and countered it just seconds before it cut her completely in half. 

 

But she didn’t have time to be afraid. She turned the blow from his lightsaber, twisted out of its path, and jabbed the point of her baton at Ren’s stomach, forcing him to break his stance to jump back. She used the moment he was off-balance to swing at his legs, but he regained his footing and blocked the blow.

 

He was already moving slower, and she saw him cast an angry glance over her shoulder, in Armitage’s direction. Her plan must be working; Armitage was keeping Ren from using the Force, and without it, he was weaker. As he stepped, she noticed that he was favoring one leg, and she thought he must have been injured when his ship crashed. Between Armitage, the injury, and the lingering effect of the grenades, she might actually stand a chance.

 

She bared her teeth at him in something that was almost a grin and jumped to attack again. Even with everything that was limiting him, he was still a formidable opponent. She only managed to get a couple of strikes in before he got her on the back foot, and she had to duck awkwardly to avoid his lightsaber sheering off the top of her head. As it was, she felt the blistering heat of it nearly touching her scalp. It took a bit of a scramble to get out of his reach long enough to get back into position and bring her baton back around. As she did, Ren narrowed his eyes, and she heard Armitage make a small, wounded sound behind her. This couldn’t go on forever; even distracted, Ren was stronger and better trained than Armitage. She had to finish this quickly. 

 

“Why are you doing this?” he asked her suddenly, and she paused, watching him, waiting for him to drop his guard as he spoke. “I am the Supreme Leader of the First Order, even Hux admitted it. Why are you following my subordinate’s orders?”

 

“I’m not,” Phasma said simply, and realized it was true. She wasn’t quite sure exactly when it had happened, but she had stopped thinking of Armitage as a commanding officer, even _her_ commanding officer. “I don’t have any orders anymore.” Saying it out loud made her feel as if she had suddenly grown more powerful. 

 

“Then what are you doing?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused. 

 

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly, and smiled brightly at him. For this moment, for this fight, she didn’t belong to anyone, not to Ren and not even to Armitage.

 

He narrowed his eyes at her, looking as though he would argue, but in doing so he dropped his guard just slightly, and Phasma, with a feeling of freedom that was almost joyful, lunged forward and batted his lightsaber aside with her baton. At the same time, she shifted her weight and struck out with a kick that hit him in the side of the knee on the leg he had been favoring. It buckled only a little bit before he caught himself and straightened, but the distraction was enough, and Phasma brought an armored fist into the side of his head. He dropped to his knees, a trickle of blood dripping from the cut she’d opened up on his temple, and his lightsaber fell to the ground and put itself out.  

 

She raised her baton high. One more blow would end this. Ren looked up and met her eyes.

 

_Wait_. The thought wasn’t her own, but it wasn’t a compulsion, either. It didn’t force her to do anything. And, she realized, it didn’t come from Kylo Ren’s mind. The word, the thought, the plea, was Armitage’s.

 

***

 

Hux tried to follow the battle back and forth across the room, tried to keep track of what was happening to Phasma, but it was all he could do to hold Kylo Ren back. Keeping contact with Kylo’s mind was like trying to arrest a slide down a slippery slope with no handholds. 

 

He grit his teeth and focused every resource he could draw up from his mind, forcing tendrils of his own Force abilities to push through Kylo’s defenses and keep a hold on him, disrupting and twisting off target every attempt he made to attack Phasma. All the while, Kylo struck back at him, and he found himself diverting energy to counter bludgeons with the full weight of Kylo’s wild rage and hatred. 

 

He struggled not to be thrown, not to reel and lose track of what he was doing. Sweat broke out on his forehead and his legs trembled with the mental strain. He closed his eyes; at this point, even the slightest distraction would destroy him. He would just have to trust that Phasma was handling herself.

 

A particularly vicious and sudden strike hit him with such force that he leaned back against the wall behind him, wincing against a pain in his head. Something seemed to have been broken open in his mind, and he was bombarded by a scattershot barrage of things he had spent his life trying to push down, _I don’t want to go I have to hide cover my head don’t let them find me don’t_ _touch me don’t hurt me I’ll kill you_

 

_No!_ he howled in the direction of Kylo’s mind, clawing and pulling himself back together. He hadn’t come this far, risked this much, just to be beaten down again by Kylo Ren. Ren himself seemed to have been stunned by the ferocity of Hux’s reaction, and his attacks had slowed. Hux poured all of his anger into a last-ditch effort, sharpening his mind like a knife and launching himself across the gap between himself and Ren. 

 

He almost stumbled, both figuratively and literally, when he met barely any resistance. The weapons that had been mustered against him a moment before seemed to have disappeared, and he tore and tumbled through the last token shreds of Ren’s defenses into his mind. 

 

He blinked his eyes open in surprise and found Ren on his knees, blood oozing from a cut on his temple, Phasma standing over him with her voltage baton raised. Ren’s lightsaber was put out on the ground beside him, fallen from his hand. Phasma must have gotten a good hit in while Ren was distracted by Hux.

 

This was the time. They could strike a blow now that would end this fight, accomplish the mission, and put Hux and Phasma back where they belonged. He closed his eyes. _It’s just like Starkiller_ , he thought to himself. _Your mind is just another weapon_. 

 

He pushed forward, gathering his strength, and found himself deep enough into Ren’s mind that the man’s thoughts were all around him. They were not a gentle rain like Phasma’s; they whirled around Hux like a heavy storm. He brushed against them and

 

_I want to go home._

 

the thought echoed around him from every corner, over and over, attached to every thought, every whirl of anger and madness and desperation and betrayal and anguish carried the same burden

 

_I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home I want to go home I want to go home_

 

and Hux, frozen, in the center of the maelstrom, became, in an instant, aware of three relentlessly horrifying things.

 

He was aware that, for all that the thought was Ren’s, it might as well have been his own. Ren was tired, so tired that it was a struggle to keep himself sane, and if Hux was honest with himself, he was tired in the exact same way. Every fight between the two of them, every second of hatred and contempt, every attempt by one to hurt the other, and all this time, deep down in the places they’d been trying to bury for years, both Hux and Ren had been thinking the same damn thing. Hux wanted to go home, too.

 

He was aware that home wasn’t the First Order, not anymore, if it had ever been. He didn’t want to be the Supreme Leader, he didn’t even want to be a General. The realization he had been trying to put off since his argument with Phasma, the understanding that he’d been viewing only the edges of, trying to protect himself from it, broke over him like a tidal wave: he didn’t want to go back to the First Order. He didn’t want to go back at all. Even if he had completely free reign, even if he could run everything exactly as he saw fit, he didn’t think it would feel like home. Home now was a room on a transport ship where he could fall asleep and wake up next to someone who cared about him, and impossible as it was, that was the only place he wanted to go back to.

 

And, last and most terrible, he was aware that, despite his plans, despite his fears, despite everything he had thought he wanted, he didn’t want to kill Kylo Ren. He had been killing almost all his life, and he was tired of it. Faced as he was with a man who had been built by Snoke as painstakingly as Hux had been built by his father, he didn’t want to do it again.  

 

_Wait_ , he thought at Phasma, and she paused, glancing at him worriedly. Ren, in front of her on his knees, looked up at her, and Hux was faced with the question of what the hell he intended to do next. He might not want to kill Ren, but there was no way he could let him hurt Phasma. Already, he could feel Ren’s mind gathering itself back together. 

 

He was saved from having to make a decision by the sudden presence, at the edge of his awareness, of Rey and another beacon of Force-sensitivity that he thought must be General Organa. Hux felt Ren’s surprise, and the other man looked toward the door of the room, his face twisting into something alarmed and full of some unreadable emotion.

 

A moment later, they appeared in person: Rey and Rose followed by General Organa and Chewbacca. Ren’s hand shot toward his lightsaber, and Phasma tensed and Hux prepared to lash out with the Force. 

 

General Organa stepped out in front of the others, crossing her arms and staring Ren down. Her face was grave, but there was no anger or hatred written on it. Abruptly, Ren’s resistance, his will to fight, crumbled, and Hux found himself wrong-footed again. Phasma stared down at her opponent in confusion as he slumped and hung his head.

 

The Resistance members approached him carefully, Rey reaching down to pick up his lightsaber. Ren made no attempt to stop her. Phasma stepped away, standing beside Hux and gently bumping against his shoulder with her own. It was an absurd relief to feel her beside him. 

 

“Ren?” Rey asked, her voice blank. 

 

Kylo Ren looked up at her, then at General Organa, then back to Rey. Finally he said, in a voice that cracked as if it hadn’t been used in a century, “Will you help me?”

 

Rey flinched, as if the words meant something different to her than they seemed to on the surface, but General Organa knelt gracefully in front of Ren and said, “That won’t work, Ben. I’ve never been afraid of you, and I won’t start now. Yes, I will help you. If I can.”

 

It seemed to take an eternity for anyone to move, for anyone to respond. At last, Kylo Ren leaned his head against his mother’s shoulder, and Hux felt a wave of longing and bitter jealousy that made it hard to breathe. No matter what Ren had done before, and no matter what would happen to Ren afterward, he would have this moment, this shining, perfect moment when General Organa was running her hands over his hair and folding her arms across his shoulders, tears in her eyes, whispering something into her son’s ear. Watching them, Hux felt as if the bottom had dropped out of the universe, or perhaps just of his mind, and he was clinging, desperately, trying to stop himself falling.

 

Rey put her hand on the top of Ren’s head, and Hux could feel her gathering the Force. Ren must have been able to feel it, too, but he didn’t react, didn’t lift his head. Hux felt her brush against Ren’s mind, doing something that Hux hadn’t seen before. Ren slumped against General Organa, his mind whirring down into a different set of patterns. He was asleep. 

 

Hux knew that they couldn’t stay there. This was the best chance they’d get, and they couldn’t wait any longer to take it.

 

He looked at Phasma, and she glanced back at him. He motioned to her with his head and she inched closer to him, silent even in her armor.

 

“Two Ren ships left,” Hux whispered to Phasma, and she nodded, understanding immediately. They just had to slip away, easy enough to do with all the focus on Kylo Ren, and they would take one of those ships and be off safely.

 

With the feeling that something was twisting in his chest, Hux reached out to brush his fingers against Phasma’s armored hand. She followed him, quietly, back into the dark hallways of the ruins. They would find a ship, they would escape from here, and this would all be over.

 

***

 

Finn could tell that Poe was excited. He had only gotten the chance to fly the legendary Millennium Falcon a couple of times, after all, and now those controls were under his hands again. 

 

Finn, in the passenger seat, rolled his eyes. “Are you going to be able to remember that we’re still in a war zone?”

 

“Am I that obvious, or are you just Force-spying?”

 

“I don’t even need to use the Force. I know you, Poe.”

 

Poe laughed as he tightened his grip on the controls and fired up the engine. “You sure do.” Finn couldn’t help smiling at him.

 

The Falcon wheeled into the vacuum, and Finn focused on the black space in front of them, reaching out for the Force and trying to tell where Maasym Ren was and whether he was expecting them. Errai Ren had given them the coordinates he’d gotten from Maasym’s thoughts, and Poe didn’t say anything, his face set in concentration as he flew. The feeling of excitement between them was gone, replaced with the anticipation of a battle. It was a feeling that Finn knew well and that he hoped, one day, he would never have to know again.

 

As they got closer to the coordinates of the bomb, Finn started to get nervous. Where was Maasym? Why couldn’t Finn feel anyone using the Force nearby?

 

Finn got just a second’s warning, just enough to say, “He’s here,” before Maasym’s mind seemed to slide into existence from behind its Force shield and slammed into Finn’s. Instantly, all sense he had of the cockpit around him, all sight and sound and sensation, disappeared, and the only thing he could understand was the threat from Maasym Ren and the need to fight him. 

 

Maasym beat against Finn like a storm, and for the first interminable few seconds, it was all Finn could do to keep his mind from cracking. But then, through the tumult, he caught a thread of awareness of something else, something orderly and steady like the hum of activity in an insect hive. Something electric, something completely unlike either Maasym or Finn. It had to be the Force-controlled circuitry of the bomb.

 

Finn drove himself toward it, fighting Maasym every step of the way. He felt like he was fragmenting, like his thoughts were narrowing until there was only room for one: get there and get control. 

 

Maasym was already deep into the circuits when Finn made it there, and Finn could feel the machinery being brought awake, being prepared for the explosion. He pulled violently on Maasym’s mind, trying to drag him back and away, and for a moment they hung suspended, wrestling against each other and neither able to get the upper hand. 

 

Finn felt himself slipping, felt the balance between them begin to tip in Maasym’s favor, and he struggled not to panic. The effort of fighting alone against the Knight of Ren, who had spent so much more time training and figuring out how to win battles with the Force, was making pain shoot through his brain, making him feel woozy and strange. He struggled to hang on. Everyone was depending on him, he couldn’t fail, he couldn’t…

 

_No_ , he thought angrily. _No, you are not going to beat me. I am going to win, because I am saving what I love. I am saving_ everyone _that I love._

 

With the last of his strength, he surged against Maasym’s mind, driving him back, driving him out of the machine. He felt Maasym’s astonishment, and then, with a rush, Finn took complete control of the bomb as Maasym gave it up for lost and retreated.  

 

Finn felt a rush of euphoria as his consciousness spread out along the roads and pathways of circuitry, but it was accompanied by a wave of dizzy exhaustion. As quickly as he could, Finn disarmed the bomb, then did everything he could think of to disable it entirely. 

 

That done, he relaxed his iron grip on his own mind and tipped over the edge into unconsciousness. 

 

***

 

If he had been Force-sensitive, Poe might have been able to prepare for what happened. As it was, he was stuck looking nervously between the ship’s sensors and Finn in the passenger seat. Finn’s eyes were closed, every muscle in his body so tense that he was trembling. His breaths were coming in sharp gasps. Poe hated feeling so powerless, wished there was something he could do to help Finn, to back him up. But there was nothing. He could only sit and wait.

 

Because he couldn’t follow what was going on, he couldn’t tell when the battle had been won. He could only see that Finn twitched and slumped bonelessly forward in his seat, eyes shut and a trickle of blood coming from his nose. Distracted, he didn’t see Maasym’s final, last-ditch attack until it was too late.

 

“Finn!” Poe said, scrambling for his harness and luckily not managing to undo it before he was caught up in a whirlwind of sound, pressure, impact, and motion. When he was finally able to remember where, what, and who he was, he was aware that emergency alarms were shrieking from seemingly every angle, the control panel in front of him was completely dead, there was smoke in the cockpit, and every single part of his body hurt. 

 

Through the unbroken viewscreen he could see Maasym’s ship making its escape. It was flying in a wobbly, odd pattern, as if its pilot had been disoriented by his Force battle with Finn. But that hadn’t prevented him, apparently, from firing on the Falcon. 

 

Poe struggled out of his harness, wincing at the bruises where it had dug into him. He stood on shaking legs, unbuckled Finn’s harness, and pulled him out of his seat to set him down on his back on the floor of the ship. 

 

“Please, please,” Poe whispered to himself as he pressed two fingers against Finn’s neck, laying his ear against Finn’s chest. He almost starting crying when he realized Finn still had a pulse, felt his chest still rising and falling. “Hang on, Finn,” he said, patting him on the shoulder. “Just hang on, I’ll get this sorted out.” Poe looked around at the darkened, unresponsive cockpit and stumbled back to his feet. The first thing to do was to get the systems back online as quickly as possible.

 

Poe ran through the ship with growing alarm. Everything was down. _Everything_. The engines were gone, and life support with them. As soon as they ran out of the oxygen in the ship, that would be it. And worst of all, the communications system had been destroyed, as well. 

 

He couldn’t fix any of it. He wasn’t Rose or Rey, and even if he was, the damage looked too severe to repair without spare parts. They couldn’t fly and they couldn’t call for help, and the loss of the life support systems had set a clock ticking down over their heads. 

 

_The Force!_ Poe thought with an upwelling of joy and relief. If he could wake Finn up, Finn could communicate with Rey through the bridge between their minds. Poe ran to Finn’s side.

 

“Finn!” Poe said, shaking him. “Finn, I need you to wake up! I need you to tell Rey what happened!”

 

There was no response. Of course there was no response. Finn was out cold, a trickle of blood coming from his nose. Poe remembered how long it had taken Hux to come around when he’d overexerted himself on Mustafar, and realized that no matter whether Poe shook him or yelled or threw water on him, there was no way that Finn would be able to help him. 

 

There wasn’t anything he could do. The realization hit Poe so hard that he sat down on the floor, shaking. He couldn’t fix the ship, he couldn’t call for help. There was nothing he could do. They were going to die. Poe had failed, and now Finn was going to die with him. 

 

The thought made him feel cold and numb all over. Clumsily, hardly able to control his hands, he reached out for Finn and dragged him into his arms. “I’m sorry, Finn,” he said, his voice cracking. Finn deserved better. Finn deserved to live and be happy. Rey and Rose deserved better than to be forced to grieve again, after all their other losses. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, not quite sure who he was addressing anymore. 

 

Poe held Finn against him, resting Finn’s head on his shoulder. He took deep, steady breaths, because if ever there was a situation where panicking wouldn’t help, this was it. There was nothing more he could do. He pressed his face into Finn’s hair. “It’s alright, Finn,” he whispered. “This’ll be alright.”

 

***

 

Jessika felt as if she’d been tense for days, years, her entire life. The bridge was silent as they watched for any sign from the planet’s surface, any transmission, any takeoff. 

 

When something finally happened, she startled so hard she nearly jumped out of her chair.

 

“Is that a message from General Organa?” she said a little too loudly to the comms officer, but she could already see that the alert was not coming from his station but from the radar and sensor array beside him. 

 

“No, Captain,” her radar officer answered her. “We’re registering a breach of the atmosphere 180 degrees from our position. It looks like a First Order ship with engines at full burn.”

 

“Are they approaching our position?” she asked. At 180 degrees, the ship was on the other side of the planet; had they known that Jessika and her squadron were there?

 

“No, Captain,” the radar officer replied. “They seem to be setting a course out of the planet’s gravitational influence.”

 

“Alert all ships, assume formation and follow us. Full speed to intercept. How far to the minimum safe distance for a hyperspace jump?”

 

“Four light minutes,” came the response. 

 

Jessika cursed under her breath. “Will we be able to intercept them?”

 

“No way,” her pilot said. “Their engines are more powerful than ours and they have a head start.”

 

Jessika shook her head. “Damn it,” she said. She considered the possibility that this was a diversion to draw them out of position so that other ships could escape from the mission zone, but General Organa had ordered her to capture any First Order ships she could. “Keep on the intercept course,” she told the pilot. “We can at least try.”

 

***

 

They were completely silent as Hux started the ignition on the ship, his hand trembling slightly. 

 

Thoughts clustered in his head, fighting each other for space and attention, _We could_ , _Maybe if we just_ , _There’s got to be a place where we could_ … It was no good, he knew. He discarded every untraveled corner of the galaxy as he thought of it. They were enemies to the Resistance, and if they deserted from the First Order, as well, they would be enemies to everyone. Even if they managed to convince the entire galaxy that they were dead, they would have to live the rest of their lives in fear. If anyone found them, there would be no way to avoid a gruesome fate. He didn’t want that for either of them. 

 

_Is it really any safer in the First Order?_ he thought miserably. 

 

He lifted the ship off the ground, aiming it for the open sky. “Phasma,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper, “I don’t know what to do.”

 

“Neither do I,” she said, her voice low and heavy. “I don’t think there’s anything else we can do. I don’t think we have anywhere to go.”

 

“I know,” he said, disgusted with himself when his voice cracked. He shook his head as he skimmed them along just inside the planet’s atmosphere, until they were far enough from the Resistance squadron that he felt safe making a run for it.

 

“It’s time to go, Armitage,” Phasma said gently. She didn’t look at him, just stared straight ahead. 

 

He nodded. He had thought he’d left this feeling behind, this ache of loss and of being torn away from where he belonged. He was leaving nothing more behind than a bunk on a broken-down transport ship in the possession of his enemies, but no matter how much he tried to tell himself that, he had to swallow hard and blink rapidly to keep his composure.

 

He tightened his grip on the controls, angled the ship toward space, hit the thrusters, and in a moment they were through the atmosphere, out into the open. They would be seen by the Resistance ships almost immediately, he was sure, but they could outrun them. All they had to do was get to a safe point to jump. 

 

“Wait,” Phasma said, leaning forward suddenly and looking at one of the sensor screens. Hux was so lost in his own thoughts that he actually flinched, startled, at the sound of her voice.

 

“What is it?” he asked, looking where she was pointing. 

 

“That’s not the Resistance squadron. Is it Maasym Ren? Or the Falcon?”

 

He pulled back on the controls, slowing the ship as he considered. “The Falcon, I think. There’s no sign of Maasym.”

 

“Why are they just sitting there? Did they manage to disable the bomb?”

 

Hux slowed the ship almost to a crawl so he could run a remote diagnostic. _We still have time_ , he told himself. _We have a head start. This will be quick_. He grimaced when the results of the diagnostic came back. “The bomb is offline, but so is the Falcon. They must have taken some serious hits, they’ve lost propulsion, communications…” His eyes flicked to Phasma’s face. “And life support,” he finished. “They can’t have more than five minutes of oxygen left.”

 

“What about the others on the surface?” Phasma asked. “Are they on their way to help?”

 

Hux closed his eyes, reaching out to Finn’s mind across the bridge and meeting nothing but an empty space. Finn was either unconscious or, he thought regretfully, already dead. 

 

“I can’t reach Finn. He can’t have been able to tell Rey that they need help.”

 

“Armitage,” Phasma said, her face still but her voice tight, “they’re still dealing with the Knights on the surface. They won’t start wondering what happened to the Falcon until long after five minutes have passed.” 

 

Hux looked at her. Part of him, a part that might have been his better judgment, a part that he might have been ashamed of, was hoping that she would tell him there was nothing they could do and they had to make good their escape. Perhaps she would bring him to his senses. But he knew she wasn’t going to do that, and she didn’t, just looked back at him. 

 

“Give me a moment,” Hux said, quickly calculating. He didn’t know the Resistance ships’ frequencies to contact them directly, and if they went much farther, they would be out of open communications range with the squadron. “Damn it,” Hux muttered, bringing the ship to a stop. He triggered the open broadcast and said, as quickly as he could while still making sure he was speaking clearly, “Attention Resistance squadron. The Millennium Falcon is in distress and carrying two Resistance members, Captain Poe Dameron and Finn. Their lives are in danger and they require immediate assistance. Coordinates to follow.” He added the coordinates and sent the broadcast, then immediately threw the engines into full burn.

 

“Is it done?” Phasma asked, stabbing a finger at the sensor, where the dots representing the Resistance squadron were moving. “Because they’re almost on us!” Phasma’s hands were hovering over the weapons panel, but she wasn’t firing.

 

“Fuck!” Hux swore as he looked at the sensor. The sight of one of the Resistance ships peeling away from the formation and heading toward the Falcon’s position caused only a brief blip of satisfaction in a sea of panic. The other ships were too close, he had frittered away their head start and their advantage in speed. There wasn’t time now to run. He’d have to make an unsafe jump from right where they were. 

 

He grabbed the controls, triggered the hyperspace jump, heard the engines whine as they were forced from idling into frantic energy expenditure…

 

Then he was rocked forward in his seat and immediately slammed back again. Alarms were blaring all across the control panel. His heart sank as he saw that one of the Resistance ships had scored a lucky hit on them and taken out their engines. They could still fire their weapons, but with the damage to the hull, the forces involved would shake their ship apart. 

 

And besides, neither of them had fired before. They weren’t going to fire now, he knew. He put his head back against the pilot’s seat. It was over.

 

Their communications array was brand new; it didn’t crackle or fizz, and there was no static overlaying the voice. One second, there was silence, and the next, a woman’s voice was saying, “Attention First Order ship. This is Captain Jessika Pava of the Resistance. You have been disabled and are surrounded. You will be boarded and taken into custody. Any attempt to resist arrest will be met with force.” Silence descended again. Hux realized he was still gripping the controls hard enough that his knuckles were white; he loosened his fingers with difficulty.

 

For a moment, neither of them moved. Hux had to try twice to be able to speak. “I’m sorry, Phasma,” he said at last. 

 

“It’s not your fault. It was always in the cards,” Phasma replied, numbly. She unbuckled her harness and leaned over and unbuckled Hux’s, as well. He followed, unspeaking, as she pulled him up out of his seat and slid to the floor with him. They sat together between the seats, their backs against the console, staring down into the ship where the Resistance members would come for them. They wrapped their arms around each other and held on tightly.

 

“Armitage,” Phasma said, “please come in.” Wordlessly, he reached toward her mind with his own, brushing against it, trying to be comforting. 

 

“I love you,” Phasma said softly, her voice wavering.

 

“I love you, too,” Hux answered, and put his head against her shoulder, trying to memorize the sound of her breathing. Once they were Resistance prisoners, he didn’t imagine he’d ever see her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the cliff-hanger! I promise I've got a happy ending in mind!


	13. Taking the Third Option

His Resistance captors had, thus far, been quite humane. They’d taken his coat and boots, but hadn’t demanded he strip out of his shirt and trousers, thankfully. They had even given him a small datapad (not connected to anything, of course) when he had asked. He was sitting on the narrow bed with his legs drawn up to his chest and writing on it when the door to his cell opened and General Organa stepped in.

 

She nodded to the Resistance guard, who looked nervously at Hux before nodding back and closing the cell door. Hux snorted with amusement. What did the guard think he was going to do? If he had wanted to kill General Organa, it would have made far more sense to do so on the surface of the planet they’d just come from, when he was still at liberty. 

 

General Organa, to his surprise, did not remain standing. She sat down on the floor of the cell, her back to the wall next to the door. The cell was small enough that she was only two feet from him. 

 

“General Organa,” he said warily, nodding his head in greeting. 

 

“General Hux,” she answered, calmly and pleasantly, as if they’d run into each other at some official function and not in a prison cell. As if he wasn’t the Resistance’s most wanted and headed to a presumably grisly public execution. 

 

“I’ve been informed that Captain Dameron and Finn survived and are in good health,” Hux said after a long moment. “Is that the case?”

 

General Organa’s mouth twitched into a small smile. “It is true, I’m happy to say. No lasting damage, and Poe’s already wanting back into the pilot’s seat of a ship.” She waved a hand at the datapad. “Are you preparing your defense?”

 

He actually laughed aloud at that. She raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I was under the impression that no defense was possible. Did you forget that I gave the order to destroy the Hosnian System?”

 

“Not even for a second,” she answered coolly. “But you are going to get a trial, and you’ll be able to speak in your own defense or request that counsel be assigned to you.”

 

“What kind of trial is that?” he asked, confused. He’d never heard of a system like that. 

 

“The kind we have in the Republic.”

 

“There is no Republic.”

 

General Organa smiled. “There is now. Once word got around that the Resistance had you _and_ Kylo Ren in custody, along with several other high-value targets, we weren’t quite as pressed for allies as before. There’s been some confusion about leadership in the First Order, so we’ve had a few days of breathing space to start thinking about our next steps.”

 

“I’m prepared to explain my decision making,” he said. “But I don’t think it will make any difference to whoever will be judging me at this trial. And I’m not willing to grovel or lie or pretend I’m something I’m not.”

 

“Then what are you writing?” General Organa asked.

 

He hesitated, but he had intended her to see it, anyway, so he handed her the datapad and said, “It’s my statement in defense of Captain Phasma.”

 

General Organa swept her eyes over the datapad and read aloud, “As the officer in charge of the Stormtrooper program for seven years, I am able to offer an expert analysis of its effect on the thought processes of its recruits. Captain Phasma was taken from her family at the age of eight, and the position that her family would otherwise have occupied in her mind and world view was replaced by the First Order. Recruits to the Stormtrooper program are extensively trained to view the First Order as infallible and to obey orders without question. This training is overwhelmingly effective in the vast majority of cases. It would be unreasonable to expect someone to withstand twenty-four years of such training, especially beginning at such a young age, without internalizing the expected obedience. Captain Phasma’s loyalty to the First Order and her execution of my orders were impeccable, and I thus take complete responsibility for any and all of her actions throughout her time under my command.”

 

“I had thought of giving details of what the training entailed,” Hux said, when General Organa paused. “Do you think it would be helpful?” He wasn’t quite sure why he trusted her to give him an honest answer, but he did.

 

Instead of answering, though, she said, “Phasma was only eight years old?”

 

Hux nodded, feeling oddly ashamed.

 

“How old were you? When your father took custody of you?” General Organa asked, in a conversational tone.

 

Hux scowled at her. “I know what you’re doing.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“You’re trying to imply that I was somehow in the same position as Phasma was.”

 

“Were you not?”

 

“Of course not,” he said. “I wasn’t a Stormtrooper. I wasn’t being trained to obey orders, I was intended to be an officer from the beginning. I was being trained to lead and make my own decisions.”

 

“Is that so?” General Organa asked the question blandly, not even arching her eyebrows. 

 

Hux flushed and didn’t answer that particular question. Instead, he said, grudgingly, “I was five years old.” And then, becoming irritated with himself and with her, he snapped, “Are you trying to give me hints about how I should defend myself? Is this some kind of special treatment because I helped you take your son into custody…”

 

“I have three sons,” General Organa cut him off, firmly. “And two daughters. And I want all of them to be able to live in peace.”

 

Hux was derailed into silence for a moment, but then chose to ignore this and continue as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “I fail to see how I am any more deserving of leniency than any other member of the First Order.”

 

To his surprise, General Organa smiled at that. “I completely agree.”

 

“Oh,” Hux said, nonplussed. 

 

“You’ve probably guessed that the First Order’s been thrown into chaos with both you and Kylo Ren gone. It’s the best opportunity that the Resistance, the Republic I should say, is going to get. If the First Order is going to fall, it’s going to fall outpost by outpost because it doesn’t have clear leadership.”

 

“So then do it,” Hux said bitterly. “Blast it to pieces from orbit, outpost by outpost.”

 

“That isn’t what I want to do, though,” General Organa said. At his incredulous look, she shrugged. “I won’t lie and say there aren’t people in the Republic that are advocating for that. There are people who think that the only safe way is to completely wipe the First Order out.”

 

“What do you think?”

 

“The thing is, General Hux, I lived through the defeat of the Empire and the beginning of the Second Republic. I was there, and I was part of the leadership. There were people then, too, who thought the only safe thing to do was wipe the Empire out. Some of the time, I agreed with them. We were all just kids, angry kids who’d seen our parents murdered and thought we had all the answers. You know what happened?”

 

“You didn’t wipe out the Empire?” Hux asked.

 

“We pushed them hard, but we weren’t strong enough to reach every corner of the galaxy. And everyone associated with the Empire in any way was afraid of us. They weren’t all fighters, either, there were engineers and technicians and mathematicians and administrators. The Empire had snapped up talent from all over the galaxy, and all that talent, all that experience and all those ideas, could have become part of the Republic. But instead, they all ran away from us. They felt like they had nowhere to go but with the leftovers of the Imperial Command. We handed the First Order everything it needed to build itself into our enemy.”

 

“And that’s what you’re hoping to avoid, I take it, by striking quickly and devastatingly now,” Hux said.

 

General Organa made a frustrated sound. “No, damn it, you’re not listening to me. That isn’t what I want.”

 

“Then what do you want?”

 

“I want to offer the members of the First Order the chance to become citizens of the Republic.”

 

“You…” Hux couldn’t help gaping at her. “You can’t be serious.”

 

“I’m completely serious,” General Organa said. “The Second Republic couldn’t destroy the Empire, and I don’t think the Third Republic can destroy the First Order. Not completely. Besides, the First Order’s been fostering skills and talent all this time, along with obedience. You were trained to see people as resources, weren’t you?”

 

“Yes, but… But they were trained to hate you. We were all trained to hate you.”

 

“Do you hate me?” General Organa asked. He didn’t answer. “It’ll be an adjustment on both sides, I’m not denying that.” Hux rolled his eyes at the understatement; General Organa didn’t seem to take offense. “There are monsters in the First Order, I’m sure. There are truly conscienceless, terrible people. I used to think you were one of them. But you didn’t fire a shot at Captain Pava’s squadron, and you saved Poe’s and Finn’s lives, despite the fact that it ruined your chance to escape.”

 

“Captain Phasma agreed with me about doing those things,” Hux said quickly.

 

“I know,” General Organa said, smiling unreadably. “My point stands. There are certainly monsters in the First Order, but how many others do you think are like you and Captain Phasma? How many were taken from their homes as children and brainwashed until they thought what they were doing was right? And of them, how many do you think could be shown a different way of doing things? Answer me honestly, have you really never doubted the First Order? Never once?”

 

Hux thought that the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to meet General Organa’s eyes could probably serve as answer enough, but he still ground out, “Yes, I have doubted.” He shook his head. “But, what, you think you’ll convince anyone in the First Order if you just broadcast an amnesty and hope for the best?”

 

General Organa gave him a long look with both her eyebrows raised, as if she was waiting for him to grasp something he’d missed. All at once, he realized that there wasn’t really a reason for her to have come to his cell to tell him about her plan. Unless…

 

“You want _me_ to do it?” he asked incredulously. 

 

“I’ve convinced my colleagues on the new Senate to offer you a deal. You’ll appear before the court and formally surrender on behalf of the First Order. Then you’ll publicly renounce your rank and promise to never hold any military rank again. You’ll also disavow the philosophy of the First Order and agree to become a ward of the Republic under my supervision. And then you’ll help us contact units of the First Order’s military and convince them to lay down their arms.”

 

“You… I…” Hux stopped and took a breath, trying to order his thoughts. “That will never work. Why would anyone listen to me? Ren is the Supreme Leader.”

 

“As of this morning, Kylo Ren has abdicated his position, left the First Order, and disbanded the Knights of Ren.”

 

Hux was struck speechless for a second, but he quickly regained the thread of his argument. “But if I give up my rank…”

 

“Kylo Ren stripped you of your rank before, didn’t he? But the orders you gave were still enough for some of the members of that First Order squadron in the Idavoller system. If it hadn’t been for your orders, Captain Pava’s squadron would have suffered much heavier losses. At least some of the rank and file in the First Order will listen to you.”

 

Hux shrugged helplessly. “You have to know that I can’t guarantee you complete compliance. I have no idea how many people will be willing to disarm just because I told them to.”

 

“I’m not asking you for a guarantee, just a good faith effort. I’m not even sure how much it will matter exactly what you say. You yourself will be a symbol that what we’re offering is real. If it works for you, it’ll work for them.”

 

Hux hesitated. “This is a truly insane plan,” he said. “Even if it works, aren’t you worried that having so many former First Order soldiers in your Republic will be like having a bomb planted in the belly of your ship?”

 

“Honestly? Yes. Yes, I am very worried about integrating First Order people into the Republic. But I’ve seen what happens when we do things the other way. I planted the seed of the enemy my children would have to fight, and I don’t want to do the same thing to my grandchildren. I have to at least try something new.”

 

“You’ll let dissenters into your Republic, and you’ll dissipate all the power that you’ve gained being a war hero by squabbling in some Senate. Who’s going to protect your citizens if you’ve hamstrung yourself?”

 

“That’s the thing, General Hux,” General Organa responded, “if a Republic is working correctly, my citizens will be protecting themselves with their own voices. I’m not asking you to believe right away that a Republic is the best way, all I’m asking is that you admit that the First Order’s way is wrong and let me try another option.”

 

Hux didn’t really have any more arguments to make about the lunacy of General Organa’s idea, but he did have one more worry. “What is going to happen to Captain Phasma?”

 

“Finn’s volunteered to take on the mission of rescuing Stormtroopers and helping them find a place in the Republic,” General Organa answered. “He’s in Captain Phasma’s cell right now, asking her to help him. She’ll have a similar deal to consider.”

 

Hux felt something like relief. Whatever he did, he knew who he couldn’t do it without. “I want to take your deal,” he said, and meant it. He still thought it was a bit insane, and wasn’t entirely sure how much good he would be, but he wanted to do something, he was built and trained to be useful, and he didn’t want to serve the First Order anymore. “And I will if Captain Phasma takes her deal.”

 

“Only then?” General Organa asked. 

 

“Only then,” Hux answered. “She’s followed me for long enough. It’s her turn to decide.”

 

General Organa silently handed Hux his datapad back, then took her own from her pocket and typed a quick message. It chimed with a reply almost immediately, and she smiled and shook her head as she read it. She stood up and knocked on the door of the cell. 

 

“Come on,” she said, when the door had been opened by the guard. “Come with me.”

 

“Come where?” Hux asked, bewildered. 

 

“Visiting hours,” General Organa said, her smile widening. He got up off the cot and trudged out the door, wondering dully if he was being taken to his execution. Nothing that was happening made any sense. 

 

General Organa caught his arm gently. “General,” she said softly, “a great hero of the Rebellion against the Empire once said that rebellions are built on hope. I think republics should be, too. All I’m asking is that you help me bring that hope to your people. And I’ll do everything that I can to be worthy of their faith in me.”

 

***

 

“Are you awake?” a familiar voice asked from the door of her cell, and Phasma smiled. 

 

“Just resting my eyes,” she said, blinking and sitting up. Finn leaned against the barred door, watching her with a level look. “You’re looking well for a man who nearly died.”

 

“Thanks,” Finn said brightly, and motioned with his head to someone in the hallway with him. A guard stepped forward and unlocked the door, and Finn stepped in, seeming unconcerned as the door closed behind him. 

 

“Attempting to take you hostage might be a reasonable way for me to react,” Phasma pointed out to him. “It’s a desperate move, but I’m in a desperate situation.” He just nodded and waited. She didn’t get up off her cot, and eventually she sighed and shrugged and leaned back against the wall. “Is Armitage alive?” she asked. It felt like it had been the only thing on her mind since they’d been separated.

 

Finn nodded. “Alive and well. In a cell of his own.”

 

Phasma felt the tension she’d been carrying in her chest release, and she smiled. She reached under her pillow and pulled out the little knot of fabric, the remnants of her cape. Her captors had let her keep it when they’d taken her armor, but she hadn’t been able to bear looking at it when she wasn’t sure if Armitage was alright, and she wasn’t willing to ask a stranger the all-important question. Now, she held the cloth in her lap, running her fingers over the loops and seams. “80086139924,” she recited cheerfully. 

 

“What?” Finn asked, blinking in confusion. 

 

“Armitage shared all his access codes with me,” she said. “His command codes, for the First Order databanks. That’s the code to put in an information request to the sealed archives.” She repeated the number, and Finn scrambled for the datapad in his pocket to take it down.

 

“Why are you telling me that?” he asked. 

 

“Because the sealed archives have all the information about the origins for each Stormtrooper.” His eyes widened. “Planet, settlement, sometimes even family information. I don’t know how long it will take, now that Armitage is a prisoner, for the archivists to disable that access code, but if you want to try to sneak in an information request, I figure you deserve the opportunity.”

 

“What if I use that code to hurt the First Order?” Finn asked. 

 

Phasma shrugged. “I suppose there’s a chance you could. You could try getting something strategic from the sealed archives. And maybe Armitage wouldn’t want me to give you that code. But I don’t particularly care about the First Order anymore, and in this case, I’d have to respectfully disagree with Armitage.”

 

Finn was silent for a long moment. His voice was soft when he asked, “Have you ever used it? To find your original family?”

 

“Why would I?” Phasma replied. “They wouldn’t even recognize me. Besides, I already have a family. I even have the forms to prove it.” She laughed. “It’s a small family, only one person strong, but he takes enough looking after to keep me busy. And I don’t suppose it will matter for me much longer.” Finn didn’t say anything in response to that, so she continued, “So, you defeated Maasym Ren one-on-one with the Force. That’s impressive.”

 

“Are you proud?” he asked.

 

“Yes,” she answered, not seeing the point in lying. “You were one of mine.”

 

“Yes, I beat Maasym. That’s going to be my last fight.”

 

Phasma cocked her head to one side. “What do you mean?”

 

“I’m not a soldier anymore. I’m not a fighter now. I’m done with that.”

 

“You… simply decided that? What do your Resistance friends have to say about it?”

 

“Well, first off, we’re not a Resistance anymore. We’ve captured Kylo Ren and General Hux and we’ve got new allies coming out of the woodwork. Leia’s declared a Republic again. And second off, they wouldn’t force me to fight if it wasn’t what I wanted. That’s the whole reason I left the First Order, it’s the thing that made me want to join the Resistance. The choice is mine, that’s the whole point.”

 

“So what will you do, if not fight?”

 

“I’m going to help people,” Finn said, as if that was simple, as if anyone really knew how to do that. She raised an eyebrow at him. “People like us,” he clarified. “Stormtroopers. Leia put me in charge of finding them, helping them escape from the First Order and join the Republic if they want. Giving them a way out.”

 

“You’ll be practically a legend to them,” Phasma said, making no attempt to hide the fondness in her voice. “The first to make it out. You could have just run, but you took up arms on the other side, instead. You’ll be very convincing.”

 

Finn looked at the ground, smiling bashfully. “That’s the hope,” he said. He glanced up again at Phasma. “We both know from experience that that programming can be hard to break. It might be helpful to have a Stormtrooper officer helping me out, to show people that even the authority figures have decided that it’s time for the whole thing to end.”

 

Phasma held the cloth knot tighter, hoping Finn didn’t see that her hands were shaking with how badly she wanted what he was saying. “Aren’t I slated for execution?” she asked. 

 

“You’re slated to be offered a deal.”

 

“What’s the catch?”

 

“The catch, if you can call it that, is that you’re not going to be part of the First Order anymore. You’re not going to be a Captain. You’re going to be a private citizen of the Republic, on parole, under Leia’s supervision but working with me.”

 

“You’ll be my superior officer?” Phasma asked.

 

“No, because neither of us would be soldiers. I’d be your colleague.” He shrugged, grinning. “Your boss, too, I guess.”

 

Phasma thought about that for a moment. “The adults, too?” she asked.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean, it will be easier to break into the dormitories for the young recruits, and they’ll be easier to convince. Will you stop there? Or are you going to try to help the adults, too? The ones who have been fighting and killing Resistance members?”

 

“Everyone,” Finn said firmly, without a trace of hesitation. “I want everyone to get the chance to choose.”

 

“That’s good,” Phasma said, leaning her head against the wall and smiling. “That’s good, I’m glad. But what…” She hesitated, her heart in her throat. “What’s going to happen to Armitage?”

 

“Figured you’d ask that,” Finn said. “Leia’s talking to him right now. He’s being offered a deal of his own, to help Leia dismantle the rest of it, everything else in the First Order that we wouldn’t be handling.”

 

“Ah,” Phasma said, with a wave of relief. “Well, Finn, I would like to take the deal.” Finn smiled, but before he could say anything she continued, “And I will, if Armitage agrees to the deal being offered to him.”

 

Finn narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t understand you. You still want to take his orders?”

 

She loosened her grip and held her hands flat, so he could see the tangle of cloth she was holding. “It’s not a matter of taking orders. It’s a matter of choosing what I’m unwilling to live without.”

 

“But…” Finn cut off as his datapad chimed a message. He pulled it from his pocket, looked at the screen, and burst out laughing. 

 

“What is it?” Phasma asked as Finn quickly typed out a reply.

 

“Nothing,” Finn said. The datapad chimed again and he nodded and banged on the door to the cell. 

 

“Are you leaving?” Phasma asked, a little disappointed. It had been nice to have someone to talk to. 

 

“We both are,” Finn said. “Leia’s bringing Hux, so you can have a conversation.”

 

Phasma’s heart leapt and she scrambled off the cot with undignified haste. The guard opened the door and she followed Finn out into the hallway beyond, restraining herself from bouncing up and down on her toes. 

 

Finn and the guard from her cell lead her around a corner, into a wide room with a table in it that she thought was probably intended for interrogations, but she didn’t think about it too hard because she spotted Armitage before he spotted her. He was saying something to General Organa, and by the time he turned at the sound of her footsteps she was already there, throwing her arms around him, holding him tightly, and even picking him up and spinning with him, because she’d been sure she’d never see him again and his face and his bright hair and his skinny body were enough to knock the wind out of her.

 

“Phasma, Phasma,” he whispered against her ear, his hands tightening in the fabric at the back of her shirt.

 

“Armitage,” she whispered back. 

 

From the corner of her eye, she saw that General Organa had drawn Finn and the guards away to the entrance of the room, partially turned away from them. They were still obviously keeping an eye on them, but the modicum of privacy was kind. Phasma felt a warm wave of gratitude for them. 

 

“They offered you a deal?” Armitage asked after a while, his face still buried in her shoulder. 

 

“They did,” she answered, her lips against his hair. “And you?”

 

“They did. I was inclined to take it, but I told them I wouldn’t unless you took yours.” Phasma couldn’t help laughing. Armitage pulled away a bit so he could look at her in confusion. “What?”

 

“So that’s what Finn thought was so funny,” Phasma said, putting her forehead against Armitage’s. “I said the same damn thing.”

 

“Oh,” Armitage said, his eyes going wide. “So, I suppose…”

 

She thought she understood his hesitation. She’d spent so much of her life trying to survive, struggling with all her might to cling to existence, and yet now, when the choice to live should be so easy, it was almost daunting how much would change. But all that mattered, really, was that they were alive and together. “There’s nothing stopping us,” Phasma answered for him. “We’re with the Republic now.”


	14. Epilogue: We Belong (Together)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading this story, and to everyone who has left comments or kudos. I can't even tell you how appreciative I am! I hope you had as much fun reading this as I've had writing it :)

Leia stood in the anteroom in front of the door to the highest-security cell, and she looked at the old picture on her datapad, trying to feel ready for what she was about to do. 

 

Ben was three in the picture, if she remembered right, sitting on the grass in the Senate gardens with Poe. Poe was telling him something, looking confident and assured, and Ben had his brow furrowed and his mouth turned down in childish seriousness, trying to follow the older boy’s words, trying not to miss anything. 

 

Behind them were a pair of benches, angled slightly toward one another on either side of a small table. Han and Leia sat on one, Leia’s hand on Han’s knee as she leaned forward, talking to Kes and Shara, on the other bench, as animatedly as Poe was talking to Ben. They were all smiling; Shara was laughing with her eyes closed and her hand over her mouth. Leia couldn’t remember who had taken the picture, another Senator, maybe. They’d all thought every moment was worth documenting. They were such hopeful, happy times, the birth of a new Republic that would surely never be broken. 

 

_Han, Kes, Shara_ , Leia thought, _how the hell am I supposed to do any of this alone?_

 

“I’m not sure about you going in there on your own,” Poe said behind her, his voice tight. 

 

“I’ll be fine,” Leia answered, pulling herself out of her reverie and putting away the datapad. 

 

“I should go with you. I should, I just… I just don’t know if I can talk to him.” Poe was looking at the ground, tense.

 

“I’m not asking you too.”

 

“After what happened, when I was a prisoner…”

 

“Poe,” Leia said, putting a hand on his arm. “Poe, I’m not asking you to do anything. It’s okay. But I need to talk to him.”

 

Poe nodded, looking unhappy. “Okay. Okay. Be careful, please.”

 

“Of course,” Leia said gently. 

 

“I love you,” Poe said. 

 

She smiled at him. “I love you too.” She took another deep breath, and then she keyed in the code to the door and walked in. It shut and locked heavily behind her. 

 

Ben was sitting on the floor, slumped against the far wall, his wrists cuffed. Leia wasn’t fooled by the restraints; he could kill her without even moving, she was sure. But he didn’t move, didn’t even look up.

 

“Ben,” she said quietly. He twitched at the name, and she wasn’t sure whether it was a flinch or not. 

 

She strode across the room, more confidently than she felt, and sat down on the floor cross-legged in front of him, close enough that her knees were touching his. Before he could react, she pulled from her pocket Han’s dice on their golden chain and held them out toward him.

 

He stared at her outstretched palm, his face frozen and his eyes wide. “I saw that,” he whispered. “On Crait. Luke left an illusion for me to find.”

 

“No,” Leia answered. “Luke gave _me_ that illusion. I left it for you to find. I wanted you to see it.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I loved your father. Because I loved a man who teased me and infuriated me and drove me crazy sometimes, but when the chips were down, who always respected me and came through for me. Who loved me and loved his son. He died for you, Ben. I wanted to _make_ you remember that. He wasn’t a sacrifice to be made to help you get stronger, he wasn’t a weakness you had to overcome. He was a father who loved his son and was willing to die for that. If I let you forget that, ignore it, then he would really have been dead. The best part of him would have been gone, and you would have been gone with it.”

 

Ben hung his head as she spoke, letting his hair fall in front of his face. It took her a few seconds to realize that he had started crying, which made her more frightened than she’d been since she’d walked in. When he’d been a child, he’d cried loudly, his whole body shaking with the force of it. Now he was silent, his breathing labored but even, his shoulders twitching as if he was using every effort to keep the sobs in. She bent to try to catch a glimpse of his face; his teeth were grit and his eyes screwed shut, tears sliding steadily across his face.

 

Her own eyes stinging, she grabbed one of his hands and pressed the gold chain into it. He gasped and hunched over, curling into himself and holding his cuffed hands to his chest, squeezing the chain tightly. 

 

“Mom,” he whispered, his voice cracking, “Mom, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

 

Leia got up on her knees and leaned forward and put her arms around his shoulders, pulling her to him, letting him rest his head on her shoulder. For all the pain she still felt, all the pain she knew she would always feel, holding her son again, after so long, made it feel as if a vital piece had been returned to her mind, like a hole through which her thoughts had been escaping had been closed up again. 

 

“Are you going to kill me?” he asked her, and she tried to ignore the fact that he sounded hopeful. 

 

“That’s up to you,” she answered. “If you don’t want to do any more, I won’t argue with you. But if you want to work to do something good instead, I would be happy.”

 

She held him for what felt like an eternity. There wasn’t anything else she could say. They both knew how difficult it would be for him to admit everything he’d done wrong and work toward forgiveness, and she couldn’t force him. 

 

At last, at long last, he whispered, “I want to come home.”

 

“I’ll help you,” Leia whispered back. 

 

***

 

Zosma Ren sat beside the medbay bed, where Vega Ren was being slowly brought out of the induced coma in which she’d been transported to the temporary headquarters of the Third Galactic Republic, and she remembered.

 

She had sunk herself deep into every memory she had, every memory she’d cherished for years, of a girl named Mihai and a girl named Rua, before they’d been altered. Now she had moved on to a very different memory. 

 

The first time Snoke had sent her to retrieve a young Force-user, someone who might prove strong enough to become a new Knight of Ren, he had told her about the danger the child was in. 

 

“They don’t understand him, so they fear him,” he had told her. “He needs us to keep him safe.”

 

Even then she had had her doubts, but she had gone all the same. The village had been at the foot of a cliff, looking out over a vast field of grass so tall that it brushed against her mask as she moved through it. She’d known as soon as she’d approached that something terrible was happening. There were shouts, crashes, the smell of wood burning and plastic melting and metal heating up. 

 

Then she’d felt a wave of anguish, a wordless scream through the Force, and she’d started running. 

 

She’d killed two of the villagers, and the rest had fled at the sight of her lightsaber, reflecting red against the featureless black of her mask. 

 

Outside the half-destroyed house were two adult bodies, bludgeoned and stabbed. She had paused to shut their eyes, because they had stood up for their child, and that was worthy of respect.

 

She followed the throb of pain through the Force to a room that had collapsed, and when she’d removed some of the debris, she found a skinny young teenager with his pale hair clotted with blood. One of the falling roof beams had struck him in the side of the head, fracturing his skull in several places, and one side of his face had vanished in red and brokenness. He looked up at her in bleary confusion, already going into shock. 

 

“Who are you?” he said thickly, half of his jaw unmoving and his lips flecked with red. 

 

She had a moment of treason, of bad faith, not her first and certainly not her last, when all she could think was, _Tell him to run. Tell him to run into the tall grass and never come back. He’ll die almost immediately. He’ll be better off_. 

 

She didn’t do that, thought. She picked him up carefully, one arm under his shoulders and the other under his knees, and carried him back to her ship, where she used everything in her medkit stabilizing him until she could get him to a larger ship with a surgical droid.

 

She heard Errai come in, but didn’t look at him until he said, “Zo?” His voice was soft and he winced as he said it. He was scared, she realized, that she would ask him to call her by another name, and he wasn’t ready to let go of Zosma.

 

“Yes, Errai,” she said, to put his mind at ease.

 

“Are we prisoners?” he asked.

 

“A little bit,” she responded, with a slight smile. They seemed to be in a kind of in-between space, where no one in the new Republic was quite sure what to do with them. She supposed she could be worried about that, the way Errai clearly was, but she had other things on her mind.

 

“I don’t know what to do now,” Errai said, his voice small. 

 

She looked up at him, as he stood slumped and uncertain, and she reached out to take his hand. “It’s alright, brother,” she said. “That isn’t always the worst thing.” She had spent so long focused on one thing, one person, that, when Errai had refused to leave her side, had demanded to come along with her on her last mission, it had come as a shock to realize that she had other people that she felt responsible for. Now, she was glad, so she smiled at him and held his eyes and let him see her be unafraid.

 

He nodded and stepped a little closer to her. They waited in silence until they were distracted from their thoughts by Vega stirring, making a soft, distressed sound. 

 

“Go get the medic,” Zosma said, and Errai nodded and left the room. 

 

Vega’s eyelids fluttered open, and her eyes found Zosma’s. They were dark gray, flecked with blue; they were just the way Zosma remembered them. 

 

“Rua,” she whispered. 

 

“Yes, it’s me,” Zosma answered, touching Vega’s hand hesitantly, her heart suddenly in her throat. 

 

“I missed you,” Vega said, simply. 

 

“I missed you too.” Zosma paused to catch her breath. “I don’t want to lose you again. So I’ll be right here by you. If… if that’s where you want me.”

 

Vega turned her hand so that she could close her fingers around Zosma’s. “Stay. Please stay,” she said, and Zosma bent her body so she could lay her head on the pillow next to Vega’s, and stayed.

 

***

 

Rey found an empty room, somewhere she knew she wouldn’t be disturbed, and waited, leaning against one wall with her eyes closed. She didn’t have to wait long. 

 

“Hey, kid.” She opened her eyes, and Luke was standing next to her, leaning against the wall like a mirror of her own stance, tinged with blue light. 

 

“You saved me for last,” she said. He had been making visits, the past few days, to the other Force-users that he’d trained, whose lives he’d touched, and she wondered what he’d said to them, to Finn and Ben and Hux and Zosma and Vega, but she didn’t ask.

 

“Not quite,” he said. “But almost.”

 

“You told me that you wanted me to succeed. Is that what I’ve done? Is this what you wanted to happen?”

 

“Do you feel like you’ve succeeded?”

 

Rey laughed and shook her head. “Can’t you just give me a clear answer?”

 

“Fair enough,” Luke said, grinning. “I’d say you’ve done pretty well so far. But you’re not done yet, are you? If you were, you’d be glowing blue, too. There’s still more that you’re going to do.”

 

Rey nodded, suddenly nervous. “There’s still the other Knights of Ren out there. I’ll have to find them and keep them from doing any more harm. And… I’m going to rebuild the Jedi. I’m going to find other Force-users and try to teach them and learn from them. But not somewhere far away, not cut off from everyone. I’m going to stay with the people I love. I’m going to hope that being attached to people will make me a stronger Jedi, not a weaker one.” She watched his face, waiting for the disapproval, but his grin just softened into something genuine and a little sad. “Do you think that’s the right thing to do?” she asked, when he didn’t say anything.

 

“I don’t know if anyone can ever tell the right thing to do for sure,” he said. “But I trust you.” He reached out a hand and placed it on her shoulder, just the barest feeling of pressure and a brush against the Force where it rested in her mind. “I have faith in you, Rey.”

 

“Thank you, Luke,” Rey said. “Will I see you again?”

 

He shrugged. “I can’t see the future, you know. I’m not that good. But we might see each other again.”

 

“Are you going?”

 

Luke nodded. “I am. Just one more place to go. I want to talk to Leia, one more time.”

 

She blinked, and he was gone. She stayed in that room for a long moment, thinking about the faith that he had in her and all the things that she wanted to do, then she got up and went back to the room where they’d been staying. 

 

Finn, Poe, and Rose were crowded together on a pile of cushions they’d made on the floor, watching a holo. Rose pointed to it when Rey walked in, beaming, and said, “It’s my favorite from when I was a kid! I had no idea the old Republic archives had a record of it.”

 

Rey laughed and threw herself onto the pile, worming her way in between Finn and Rose and feeling, for the first time that she could remember, that there was nothing missing.

 

***

 

They didn’t have to be in the cells anymore, because they weren’t prisoners anymore. The entire tiny transitional administration of the Third Galactic Republic would be moving within a few weeks to somewhere more permanent, but in the mean time, Phasma and Armitage had been given rooms of their own. One of them had a threadbare but somewhat comfortable sofa. Phasma sat on that sofa, rested her head on Armitage’s shoulder, and tangled her fingers with his, trying to sort through the complete reversal of her fortunes. She thought they might both still be in shock. 

 

“We seem to have a habit of surviving things we have no business making it through,” she said, and was glad when he laughed. 

 

“It really is quite disrespectful to all the people trying to kill us,” Armitage said. And, after a moment of silence, “It may take me a long time to get used to not being at war anymore.”

 

Phasma looked up and put her hand on his cheek, turning his head gently toward her and pressing her lips to his. “Me too,” she said quietly. “But we have a long time, now. We have the rest of our lives.”


End file.
